What a Habit!

As long as I can remember, Kylie has sucked on her thumb. I don't know if you can tell very well in this picture, but her poor thumb takes a beating and she is always complaining how much it hurts. She is also having major dental problems as her top teeth are moving out and her bottom teeth are moving in. We have definitely noticed this when she tries to say words like "school" or "skunk". She can't say any words that have an "s" consonant combination.

We did a gradual weening, and have thought that the habit was broken a number of times. About a year ago, we started limiting her times to just in bed or in the car. Then about 6 months ago, we decided to try to break the habit completely. Everything went very well because she responds well to progress charts and rewards. She even got a bike when she had kicked the habit completely (or so we thought).

We would check on her at night only to discover that she was sucking on her thumb in her sleep. She didn't know that she was doing it and when we mentioned it, she would beg us to help her stop. We started putting a pretty princess dress-up glove on her hand and it worked! Or so we thought! She eventually learned how to suck on her thumb with the glove on and so the subconcious sucking got even worse and frustrating for her and us.

At my dentist appointment last week, I asked for advice. The dentist suggested using a sock since then she couldn't get her thumb free. Duh!!! Why hadn't we thought of that!

So, now you see in this picture, taken tonight, that we are again attempting to break the habit. Of course she is wearing a cute pink Dora sock on her hand. It has been 4 nights now, and so far it is working. Kylie even shows me her thumb each day and tells me how excited she is that it doesn't hurt any more.