need help- how to stop my 3 year old from sucking her fingers

She's cute!!
Sorry could not offer any advise. She will eventually is all i can say. May be knowing this 'eventually' part, would comfort you a bit.

 

it is already late that you haven't stopped her from sucking her finger, now she is 3 yr old, she understands most of what we speak, tell her that she gets hurt or the doc will give an injection ................some thing like that to scare her so that she atleast tries to take away fingers from her mouth.

after she sleeps take away her finger from the mouth, always tell her repeatedly that it is not good to suck her fingers.

 

Hi Thats so cute. I would say do not force her; but try to make her do stuff, using her hands. Try and make her paint or write and then slowly she will get over it. Trust me have you ever seen a big person walk with their fingers in their mouth. It somehow soothes them.

 

You can put something that smells yucky for her, for my nephew we tried like neem paste , my aunt puts on his fingers and washes it off but not fully .. so the smells lingers on his fingers and palm , and she did that for a abt a week........ my nephew used to say MOM hand is smelling yucky :biglaugh my aunt told him if he does not put his thumb in the mouth then it will stop being yucky, he lost the habit in a weeks time.

 

My son is 2.5 years old and he always uses a blanket and sucks his thumb just before going to sleep. It is his way to put himself to sleep.

We were in India the last two weeks and once he wet the blanket. My mother in law said the big insect has taken it and never gave it back.

Since then, he asks for the blanket and we tell the same thing. we give him another blanket, but he has stopped sucking his thumb.

You can try something like that when there is a change of place or surroundigns, it might work

 

hey...one of my friends daughter also used to suck her thumb all the time...so they applied some liquid on her thumb nail...just like nail polish...it tastes horrible i guess so she stopped sucking...I think you can get this from pharmacy or ask ur ped....

 

I used to suck my thumb when I was a kid. So my parents one day tied a cloth on my thumb.I went to sleep with a clothed thumb and by morning I had forgotten thumb sucking. You can try the same. Nowadays the kids are smarter so it might take longer time.

Becoz of my thumb sucking my front upper two teeth are overlapped. So it looks a little awkward. You can try stopping your kid's thumbsucking soon otherwise the kid's teeth will be slightly out of order.Try all methods use the best.Good Luck.

 

Hi,
please do not scare the child too much with anything, that may scar for ever in the psyche of the child. Try to give some harmless story to stop her sucking, like her teeth will not grow well or something like that. All the best!

 

Yes, negative re-inforcement although works isn't good for the child's psyche. The best bet might be to logically work it out with her that its a problem, and she needs to figure out herself that it needs to stop.

She's already 3, so telling her that she can do it but not in front of others as its not polite or something might help, kids are eager to please if given a lot of positive re-inforcement. Or you can tell her how she is a big girl now as she doesn't do all the other things that little kids do (diapers, bottle-feeding etc) and then bring out what other things little kids do that grown up kids don't and bring up thumb-sucking. She should understand that its another habit she needs to lose on her way to being a big girl. Or try engaging her in something that needs both her hands. One reason they do it is because of the comfort and security it provides, so maybe, get her a soft-cuddly toy instead and tell her that she can hug and hold that toy instead of sucking on her thumb when she feels like doing it.

Also, don't worry about other kids teasing her, that could be one of the strongest motivators for her to stop doing it, and if she gets teased, its an excellent opportunity to actually show her how she can control her habits and environment by making small changes to her behavior. Its a skill that will immensely help her as she grows up.