Double the Pleasure

So I have a thumb-sucker and a paci-sucker. I have casually tried to get Brady to stop sucking her thumb, but seen no progress what-so ever. I have internally dreaded the day I have to depart Reese from her pacis. I have come up with several different plans and dates to remove them, well those dates have come and gone.

 

Here is the issue with Reese and the paci. She only gets them in the crib, so nap and bedtime. But not only does she suck on one, she usually has one in each hand that she is fiddling with until she has fallen asleep. So, by removing the pacis from Reese is taking away her “lovie” too.

 

So,  I was looking at Brady’s teeth the other night. I have always know they are bucked from her thumb sucking but man they have really seemed to move out. So I did some research: APA suggests thumb sucking to completely done by 4 when adult teeth may start to grow in (yikes that is in a year,  I need to get working on that). A couple dentist website recommended (and scared me) that she have quitted back when she turned two…WHOOPS. So here we are 11 days from her 3rd birthday and I am taking action…

 

We went to Target and picked out band-aids to make her boo-boo (the callous that has been created from the sucking) better on her thumb. She will wear a band-aid day and night until I feel like we are in the clear. So since 11:30 this morning she has been a non-thumb sucker. She asked “Can I suck the other thumb?” And I said sure. Which she has tried a couple times, but realized it isn’t as easy. I have told her yes, because everything I read said to make the experience as positive as possible, so I was trying to not make this about stopping the thumb sucking but about making the boo-boo go away.

 

Well, you probably know where this is going.  I figured if I was going to be miserable tonight while Brady struggled to fall asleep without her thumb, why not deal with the paci issue on the same night. So mark June 1, 2010…Brady went without her thumb for the first time since September, 2007 and Reese went without her paci for the first time since December 2008…well kinda!

 

For Reese I decided to cut the ends of the paci so that she could still have them in her crib to use as a “lovie” but they wouldn’t be as interesting to suck on. Reese however feel asleep by chewing on the paci…baby steps and only crying on and off for about 10 minutes.

 

Brady fell asleep in 5 minutes without crying!!! Not so miserable after all. I watched her for a little bit on the video monitor, she tried sucking her band-aid thumb got frustrated and then switched to her left thumb, got frustrated again and then gave up and just got into a ball. Next time I checked the monitor she was asleep.

 

So, okay, maybe I should have not been so scared of taking this step. But I will get back to you in a week, and tell you if it still is going this well.