Thumb-sucking

We have been trying to stop Reagan from sucking her thumb.  There are many different points of views on this subject.  Some believe that children will eventually stop on their own and that not bringing attention to it is the best method.  Others have tried to bring the child's attention to it with a variety of methods.  


I have been trying to ignore the fact that my three year daughter is an avid thumb-sucker in hopes that her desire would lessen as she grew older and moved up to the 3 year old room at school.  She interacts with the 4 year olds in this class as they are brought together at different points in the day.  However, she goes on sucking her thumb continuously.  


My husband finally had had enough and decided that she must know that she is too old to suck her thumb. So he tried hard to reason with his three year old while I chuckled knowingly that that wouldn't work. :)  Then he started to punish her every time she put her thumb in her mouth.  Of course, this didn't work because most of the time she does it sub-consciously.  Then he put Tabasco sauce on her thumb and all this did was burn the skin and made her scream until he washed it off.  


When all this failed, he turned to the Internet and bought the five star rated nail polish that had rave reviews.  We also bought the Bernstein Bears book "Very Bad Habit."  He read the book and explained the nail polish.  She started to buy in and I thought that this may work.  The nail polish is horrible!!!  We can't even put it on her thumb without gagging from the fumes.  She immediately stopped sucking her thumb.  Reagan went for almost 3 weeks of non-sucking.  We reapplied every couple of days and it really seemed to work.  However, as time kept going by we started to notice that she once again started to put her thumb back in her mouth.  We started putting the polish on every day.  Then twice a day. Finally, we decided the efforts weren't working when on Saturday she put her thumb in her mouth an hour after applying the polish.  Arghhhh!  I can say that after a month of not sucking her thumb constantly that the overall behavior has decreased dramatically.  So the nail polish did do some good.  


Now Andy is on to a weekly reward program.  If Reagan doesn't suck her thumb this week she will get a toy.  As I was putting Reagan down tonight her thumb went straight into her mouth.  I asked, "Didn't Daddy say that you could have a toy if you don't suck your thumb? She replied, "Yes, mommy, but when Daddy gets home I will take it out and then I will get my toy."  In the midst of trying to stop an infant habit, my three year old toddler is all grown up.


I'm sure that my husband will find another "solution" to our ongoing battle.  I, on the other hand, after talking with my 90 year old Mema who told me that my Dad sucked his fingers until he was five and my uncle his thumb until he was six, realized that the solution was all in the thumbs of Reagan!  Literally!