Thumb sucking strategies

[Anonymous]

My 11 year old still sucks her finger when stressed/decompressing. She’s tried the break the habit but hasn’t been successful.

When she went to prek it transitioned to bedtime or car drives.

She’s always been anxious and shy and struggles with change.

If this is her coping mechanism, I’m fine with it. And, she was getting braces anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only thing that worked was my 3yr old getting an abscess and having to stop out of fear of going to the hospital. We bought a special glove off Amazon.

My 2.5 year old stopped on his own when his thumb started hurting. He still needed braces. Lots of non thumb suckers need braces.

[Anonymous]

This is OP, I’m not worried if we’ll still need braces but I can plainly see how the thumb is moving the front teeth, so I want to keep it from being a huge issue. But it is awful because it is such a good and useful self-soothing mechanism. I would be fine to just keep the thumb sucking if I didn’t think it was causing a potentially significant issue, beyond just needing braces at some point.

[Anonymous]

I had a dedicated one from 4 months. Dream sleeper. She only sucked at night and at home from boredom by 5. And we worked on it in earnest. Books, nailpolish, glove guard. She totally wanted to stop but couldnt. Finally stopped by 6. Her top two front teeth definitely were affected even the permanent ones and i can see it. Shes generally an anxious person so it was really hard but she had to want to do it. Learning to read well helped oddly as she would read herself to bed as a soothing mechanism.