Stop n grow - this is a SN question, honest!

[r3dh3d]

DD1 (aged 2) has a major oral compulsion thing going on. Recently she's tended to suck her thumb/fingers/entire hand which we haven't made a fuss about because at least she's not eating the furniture for once.

Now she's done it so much on the left side that the skin in the crease between her index finger and hand has died and split. She doesn't feel it because she has very limited neural input from her left side so it could get a lot worse if we don't stop it now.

Reasoning isn't an option (actually behaviour modification of any sort is a bit of an issue...) so I've gone and bought some of that stuff you stick on your nails to stop you biting them, and painted it on her finger above the split.

There were 2 brands - stop n grow and a boots own brand. The stop n grow had 2 nasty tasting chemicals in it, and said not to use on a child under the age of 5. The boots one had only 1 chemical and no such warning, so I bought it.

It seems to have at least a limited effect. So am thinking we'll carry on using it. My questions:

1. am I doing the right thing? Is there anything else I could try?
2. anyone used this stuff before and know why some brands are toxic until the age of 5? What's that all about?

Thanks all.

I'm not usually on the SN boards as I don't have experience of SN, so hope you don't mind me posting my suggestions. We are trying to get DS to learn to fall asleep without sucking his thumb at the moment cause he has chewed the knuckle to pieces and it isn't healing cause he keeps sucking it.

I have ended up bandaging his thumb and hand and then using sticky plast over the bandage to stop him taking it off. But don't know how/if this would work for your DD?

Also mustard was quite effective, and horseradish too. I did the same bought the stuff and then realised I couldn't use it.

Just my 2 penneth hope you don't mind.

Just to say that we had a similair thing with ds1 who is severely autistic,he sucks his fingers,he always has his fingers in his mouth to the degree that his skin split on his finger tips around the nails.I used the stop and grow stuff,i think it was actually an own brand from superdrug,and it did help stop him putting his fingers in his mouth as it was utterly vile-not sure what age it was for though.
He also eats the plastic which coats the legs of his glasses,so i painted then in it too and he no longer eats them either !

MAMB: thanks for that - no of course you can post here! And it's a good thought about the bandage in theory - the problem is that in practice she also has a shredding habit - tears up the sleeves of her clothes with her teeth, so we always have to keep them rolled up. I think a bandage would go the same way in pretty short order. I might try the horseradish or the mustard at bed time - in the day there are only so many condiments you need on your furniture!

Loobie: glad to hear that it works! The other thing I have done is give her a diversion/replacement - she now has one of those dummy tag things permanently clipped onto her clothes and a small teething ring attached to it. Every time I catch her sucking that finger I swap the finger out and the ring back in. Her nursery say that's more or less what they would recommend anyway (they have a specialist ASD unit and a few ASD kids with oral compulsions) though we may find she gets bored and we have to change the object on the tag regularly. At the moment it seems to be working well - the ring is in her mouth more or less as often as the finger, which may at least give it a break.

Thanks both!