Is it ok for baby to suck hands to sleep

[Em12k]

Hi everyone,

I’m a first time parent and my DS is 5 months and I’ve recently taken his dummy away for sleeping as it kept waking him up every time it came out. He seems to sleep much better without it, but he now seems to send himself to sleep by chewing and sucking on his hands whilst he has scratch mitts on (he still seems to scratch his face in the night if we don’t put mitts on him!)

I just wanted to check with others if this is ok or if it can cause problems later on? I’ve read some websites say it’s a good thing because he’s learning to self settle but I was just wondering if it could affect his teeth in the same way that thumb sucking can?

Any experience on this would be much appreciated 😃

Following as my baby does this!

If he is learning to self-settle, that's absolutely fantastic and he will then graduate to thumb sucking, also brilliant. Worry about how to put an end to thumb sucking later on.

Yes! This is self soothing and not something all babies are capable of so be grateful for it . My 7mo girl has always done this. We watch her on the monitor wake up and then suck her fingers for a few minutes and fall back to sleep. She’ll prob be a thumb sucker in to childhood but honestly, who cares - I’ll take the extra sleep now and worry about wonky teeth later down the line ha!

Thanks everyone 😃 he is actually getting quite good at self settling doing this and sleeps really well at night. I feel like being a first time parent there’s always something to worry about or to doubt yourself over 😳 I’m getting better at just listening to my instincts now tho 😃