ideativity's Profile

We were able to break my daughter's habit. She picked it up at 1 1/2 yrs old at daycare copying a little boy, and she didn't stop until she was 5. We did several things at the same time. 1) We made sure to ask her daily about anything she might be nervous about that she might want to talk about, and we tried to calm whatever fears/doubts she had even if they were small, 2) we had her pick out favorite pieces of gum and allowed her to have a piece in the car (she was most likely to suck her thumb when idle), 3) we allowed her to only watch TV if she was not sucking her thumb, if the thumb was in her mouth, we turned the TV off, 4) we served her drinks with a straw, especially at night, and 5) we put a glove on her hand to sleep, and 6) we kept a paper pad and pencil for her in several places where she liked to sit, so that we could tell her to draw if her hands seemed idle (like at a doc office, or at a restaurant.), and last 7) we invented a catch phrase called "pop it and lock it" that meant to take the thumb out of her mouth and lock it into the palm of her hand. All these things together worked. Remeber always keep her hands active; it's not necessary to tell her why.