Kicking the Habit

The Problem: Finger Sucking

Wes has been a finger sucker (middle and ring finger) since birth, and probably before as the picture below can attest to. Wes is three days old here.

Though we didn't really recognize it as a habit until around this time, when Wes was about 4 months old.

But from there on out, it was all fingers all the time!

I have a sibling who was a thumb sucker and I can remember all my mom went through to get them to stop, so I was braced for a battle.

And at Wes' dentist appointment right before his second birthday, his dentist told us his teeth were definitely showing signs of finger sucking and that if we didn't get him to stop we were headed for early orthodontia treatments. So....

The Solution:

Wes' dentist recommended buying this stuff -Mavala Stop. We purchased it from his office, at a whopping $16 with the plan to sit him down first and have the "now that you're two, you are a big boy and big boys don't suck their fingers" discussion. We had that discussion which obviously fell on deaf/two year old ears. Up until he turned two, if I asked Wes to take his fingers out of his mouth he would. But the day he turned two, it was a whole different ball game. About a week or so after his birthday, and the discussion, we were coming home from church and Wes was being particularly ornery and defiant and Michael said "that's it, we're putting that stuff on his fingers." So at nap time, we slathered it on (it's like nail polish) and put him in bed for his nap. His fingers went immediately into his mouth and about a second later they came flying back out and the tears started flowing! Since his finger sucking was his self soothing method, the nap that day didn't happen. While we were listening to him cry on the monitor about how yucky it tasted, we thought, maybe we should have tried it ourselves before we made our two year old be the guinea pig!! So Michael put some on this thumb and gave it a good suck, then he proceeded to gag and almost dry heave! I just gave it the tiniest lick and needed to immediately go brush my teeth. But we had decided to stick with it and three days later, he was done sucking his fingers!!! We could see it was a struggle for him to keep his fingers out of his mouth especially at nap time and bed time and when he was tired. They would creep up to his mouth and then you could tell he would remember the awful taste and curl his fingers up under his chin. It was hard watching him go through it, but we knew it was the best thing for him, his teeth, and our pocket book. We kept the bottle in his bathroom and he would point to it when he was brushing his teeth and say "that tastes yucky!" And I would ask him what it reminded him not to do and he would reply "Don't suck the fingers!" I'm so thankful that kicking this habit was relatively easy and inexpensive, and while some of these pictures are cute, we are definitely glad it's over with!! We are so proud of you Wesley!