So, we finally had to do it. Since we could not decide on the best way to explain to Gabriel when he is older why he only has 9 fingers, we ordered the Thumb Guard.As most of you know, Gabriel is a fierce thumb chewer. He is not a thumb sucker. As usual my son has to put his own spin on it. He has chewed on his thumb so much and for so long that he has a think yellow callous on his right thumb and all his teeth have moved themselves over to the left side of his mouth making a cute comfy little cutout fit just for his little right thumb. He has actually started drinking from a straw only when it fits through this cute little hole in his teeth.
When we reached Toddlerhood, he actually started chewing it in public. He chews it when he is bored (in the car and the stroller), when he is tired, when he is hungry or when he is just generally disgruntled about something. I had thought it was ok if he only did it at night when he was a baby and then he started doing it in public and so much more often. Ever seen that 3-4 year old in the mall who won't take the thumb out of his/her mouth? I always thought that was horrible. I would say, "that kid's too old for the thumb/pacifier". Well I am going to do my best to not have that kid at the mall. It is unbelievably amazing what a strong desire it is to have the thumb in his mouth. I have to pull pretty damn hard to get it out of there.
We had his 18 month check-up on Thursday and when I asked about the dirty little habit, Dr. Paul said I would be quite justified at this time if I tried to do something about the THUMB. So we shall try the Thumb Guard. Gabriel does not handle cold turkey very well so we may be sleeping a bit less in the upcoming weeks but that's how it goes here anyway.
4 comments:
All I can say is... GOOD LUCK! Do they sell a mouth guard like that were I can prevent a binky from going in. Oh wait, I guess that would be the garbage. I dont have the courage yet to take it away from her cold turkey yet. Maybe this summer! Ugg. let me know how it goes?
Good luck with that. I claim absolutely no "I'm-an-amazing-parent" type claims over my girls non interest in thumb sucking or pacifiers. We just got lucky. They never wanted their fingers, Grace never wanted the paci and all we did with Abby was get lucky and notice when she wasn't so interested in it. I feel for you and Nikki!
Nikki-They do sell a mouth guard but it is for older kids who suck their thumbs or use binkies. It actually goes in the mouth like a retainer. Gabriel is too young for that and if we waited he would do more damage to his mouth. I hope stopping a binky habit is easier than our thumb problem. I don't know if it would have been easier to do it when he was younger. Bryan actually got an up view picture of Gabriel's mouth today and it shows the damage pretty well. I'll be letting everyone know how it's going.
ok, glad to see you're trying to stop that thumb sucking. Just do me a favor and get that over with before you ask me to babysit. I don't want to deal with a toddler going cold turkey.
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