How to wean a child to suck his thumb?

Very often, parents are touched when the baby sucks his finger and sniffs pleasantly. They recollect only when the baby can no longer fall asleep in a different way. Let’s try to figure out why the child does this and how to wean him to suck his thumb.

Why does the child suck his thumb?

It is now known that a child can suck a finger even in the womb. However, there is no exact explanation as to why he does this. Previously, they did not attach much importance to the fact that the baby sucks his thumb. It was simply considered a bad habit to get rid of. Now they say that this is not such a simple problem as it might seem at first glance. Most doctors come to the conclusion that the reason that the child sucks his thumb is an unsatisfied sucking reflex. But there are more objective reasons:

• the baby is teething;
• the baby is not eating.

It is worth paying attention to the fact that the child begins to suck his thumb after a year. The main reasons why this happens:

• the baby was sharply weaned;
• he receives little love and affection;
• emotional stress, fear;
• Another important reason is that the child may have worms. With helminthic infestations, children very often suck their fingers, may bite their nails, etc.

How to wean a child to suck his thumb?

A baby can start sucking his thumb as early as 2.5 months of age. And you need to fight this desire right away. When a child develops the habit of sucking a finger, then it will be much more difficult to deal with the problem. If you see that the baby is pulling his fingers into his mouth, you do not need to scream loudly, pull your fingers out of your mouth sharply. This can cause even more stress.

Try to keep the baby longer at the chest, keep him busy. If the baby is breastfed, it is recommended to reduce the portion and feed more often in order to give him more attention.

If the child constantly sucks his fingers, then do not take them away, but offer an alternative — a pacifier. The harmfulness of pacifiers is greatly exaggerated. And in our case, it can be very helpful. Even an older child can stop sucking their fingers.

In no case do not use radical methods, such as:

• bandage hands;
• smear your hands with mustard.

For the most part, such methods are not effective and can injure the psyche of the child. Better use the old grandmother’s way, because they knew how to wean thumb sucking with the help of the most ordinary mittens. Babies don’t like them very much and after a while the baby will stop putting their hands in their mouths. True, someone may say that this is also a hard method. However, it is not necessary to make it so, mittens can be sewn from soft cotton fabric and when the baby falls asleep, take them off.

A very effective way to wean little fashionistas is to give them a manicure, most likely, they will be sorry to spoil the beauty.

As you can see, we have offered you as many options for solving the problem, and now each mother can answer the question «What if the child sucks his thumb?» After all, she understands and feels her child best of all. The main thing is not to worry too much about how to wean a child from sucking his fingers. All the same, sooner or later the baby will stop pulling the handles in his mouth.

Interesting fact. To the question: «Why does the child suck his thumb?» Indian yogis have their answer. It turns out that our fingers are projections of energy centers. If some center of the mother is out of order, the child feels a burning sensation on the finger and shoves it into the mouth to cool it. For example, when a child sucks his thumb on his right hand, this indicates that the mother is overly active and she needs to be calmer.