21 July, 2008
Most of you know that my 7 year old has been thumb sucker for ALL of her life. She refused to take a pacifier when she was a baby. I decided that her being able to pacify herself was a great skill to have. I took the phrase "pick your battles" to heart. Well, she is -like I said- 7 years old now and still does it. We are convinced that it is merely a habit at this point. She doesn't want to do it anymore and tries very hard. We have tried everything from bitter taste on her thumb to taping it up! Nothing has worked. We have bribed her and that just makes her more frustrated because she WANTS to stop! I see her struggle. I see her put her thumb up to her mouth and pull it away. I also watch her cry when I catch her with it in her mouth. "I just can't stop mom". Breaks my heart. I have also seen her go through some sort of withdrawal from not being able to do it. She will run around saying, "I need to suck my thumb".
She has been begging me for an American Girl doll. I was sure I wasn't going to pay that much $$ for a doll. But I got to thinking! What a great incentive and reward. She is trying very hard to earn her American Girl doll. So we have been trying to help her with her goal of getting her doll and breaking the habit before school starts. She is doing really well, but isn't there yet. She really needs something on her thumb to draw attention to it so she can NOT do it. We tried band aids because they are discreet, but they fall off or she takes them off.
We are trying a new product that I found today online. It is called "thumbuster"!
It is set to arrive in the mail within the week, so I will keep you all posted on what it does, how it works, and IF it works for us! If you think of it , say a little pray for a little girl and her big struggle!! :o)
The thing that actually worked at night for my kids was a sock on the hand and duct tape around the sock. If I used any other kind of tape, they could get it off. We've tried all those other methods too.
So, how easy is it for the kid to take the thumbster off by themselves?
After the first initial visit, the dentist told her if she didn't stop, she could put in a special thing in her mouth that would make it almost impossible to stop.
We walked out of there, she looked at me and said " I'm done." And she was! She never sucked her thumb again.
I only wished I had taken her to the Orthodonist a couple years earlier.... she still had to have a palate expander and braces.. crazy.