Wanna-be Thumbsucker

Just like with all things pertaining to parenthood and raising kids, there are two camps on the thumbsucking issue. The first camp sees nothing wrong with it, would rather have their kid self soothe with an easy-to-locate thumb than waking up ten times a night retreiving the lost binki. And the other side goes the route of the pacifier, something tangible that you can take away when the time is right. I am squarely entrenched in that second camp.

I have been since the day Calli was born. The funny thing is, I didn't want her to have a pacifier! I checked off those boxes on the birth plan that said "No bottles of water" and "No pacifiers". I thought they were unnecessary. Then my six pound daughter began to use me as a soothing device and I caved. I had a friend call me in the hospital after giving birth and tell me some babies just like to suck. After hearing her say it, I truely believed it and gave in to the way of the pacifier. Calli was a definite binki baby. She needed it to sleep and as she got older and moved to her own crib in her own room, it became quite tiresome getting up to give her back the pacis she had dropped. I wondered why I had given it to her in the first place. What was I thinking? Clearly I had not thought ahead to this point. But eventually she learned to locate her own pacifier and the nightly visits to her room ceased.

By the time she was about fifteen months or so we had taken to only using the paci for sleep and in the car. If she didn't have that thing in the car, we would be in for a lot of crying and screaming. And I just wasn't ready to deal with it. She never walked around with the thing in her mouth all day so I felt this use was fine. I made a plan to go cold turkey when she turned two. The night of her birthday I let her use it for the last time. The following day, that was it. I took it away and I never had a single problem! She never asked for it back, never cried about it, it was just over. I couldn't believe my good fortune and all the stress I had endured thinking how hard it would be to get her to give it up.

Now here I am, a year after getting the paci out of our house with another baby who loves it. This time I gave it to her right from the get-go. We have used the Playtex Ortho ones and both the kids have loved them. I was briefly courted by the Soother pacifiers they give you in the hospital (the lactation consultants say their shape is best to help with breastfeeding) but those didn't work for either kid. They are far too big and hard to keep in the mouth and they had to work too hard to do it. I never liked 'em and don't get the appeal. But I digress. After my failure with those, I went back to my Orthos and Serena liked them just fine. Somehow we seem to have skipped the part where I wake up twenty times a night to give her the paci back. I don't know what she does, if she finds it herself or if she just gets by without it when it's out, but she has never called out to me at night wanting it like Calli used to. I am anticipating a bit more of a struggle taking it away in a year because I can't get that lucky twice now can I?

But on to my main point. I have noticed Serena trying out her thumb a bit the last few days. Every time she does, I promptly remove it. I do NOT want a thumbsucker! I am scared and refuse to harbor one in the house. I have just seen too many kids use it beyond an appropriate age. I can't stand seeing a five-year-old sitting there with that gross thumb in her mouth. I can take away the pacifier, but I can never take away a thumb. And breaking thumbsucking is not a road that I ever want to have to go down. Not to mention the messed up teeth that result from prolonged thumbsucking.

I'm hoping Serena is just trying her fingers out, exploring, enjoying the taste. I'll continue to discourage her and I can only hope it works. I'll have to see if I can find a better use for that thumb of hers :).