The Thumb Sucker

I have no doubt that #2 was a thumb sucker in-utero. For the moment she made her appearance, she started sucking her fingers. She was a very calm baby, rarely complaining. She often sucked her thumb, and I never saw a reason to stop this self-soothing practice...

Until recently. She will be two in two months, and the thumb sucking hasn't decreased in frequency nor duration (apparently most thumb-suckers do slow down around 12 months). And we have noticed that her upper central incisors, especially the left one (as she exclusively sucks her left thumb) were starting to angle upwards.

At a recent dental appointment, I asked my dentist for suggestions, and whether or not there would be any permanent damage...He suggested a bad-tasting nail polish, and said that to avoid permanent damage, she would have to stop by age four.

So I researched bad-tasting nail-polish geared at thumb-suckers, and found one that was highly rated. However, it wasn't recommended under age 3. Not because it was toxic , but because "taste buds are not yet fully developed under age two, and toddlers may actually enjoy the taste".

In the end, I decided to order the product, but wait until I tried some behavioral modifications...

First, I ran my daughter's index finger along her teeth so that she could feel her incisors. I explained the her teeth would be "crooked" if she sucked her thumb. Much help that did! #2 is in an "opposite" phase at the moment. So not only does she continue to suck her thumb, she goes so more vigorously, and sometimes sucks both simultaneously, with a sly smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye.

Next, I tried to keep her hands busy...and even taught to use her right hand play with her thumb instead is sucking it. That lasted less than a minute!

I tried to observe her thumb sucking... perhaps if I discovered the trigger, I could avoid the need for thumb sucking. While she often sucks herself to sleep for a few minutes, she quickly removes her thumb and she sleeps well without additional thumb sucking. However, during the day, she often resorts to thumb sucking when she is upset. Unfortunately this happens very often. For instance, last week we were out for a walk in sub-zero weather. While in the stroller, she decided to remove her hat, mittens, and her boots. When I tried to explain the need for those items, she says "NOOO", cried, and sucked her thumb. She is very contrary at the moment, and this type of incident occurs at least a dozen times a day...

After a few weeks of unsuccessful behavioral modification, I decided to try the nail polish. At first I painted just a small portion of her left nail. It made absolutely no difference! Next, I painted her entire nail. I explained to her that it would be "yucky" and that she should not suck her thumb. So, of course, she sucked her thumb. She made a funny face, and her eyes watered. She sucked her thumb a little less for a few minutes. But within a few hours, she was back at it, and in fact sucking more than ever.

After a few re-applications, I gave up in the nail-polish. The directions said to re-apply every 2 days, but how could I when the polish seemed to wear off after only a few hours...

Finally, my daughter found a solution: she asked me for a bandage, and applied it to her mouth:

A few minutes later, she had removed it. 

Then, we tried some fun-coloured gloves:

Also short-lived.

I offered her a pacifier with Oscar the Grouch on it. She seemed interested for about half a day, then she wanted nothing to do with it!

In the end, perhaps she will eventually give up this habit if I simply continue to insist on her stopping???

How we got our Toddler to Give up her Pacifier

I was not very proud of the fact that until recently, our 31/2 year old toddler still regularly used a pacifier. She was clearly addicted. She would wake up in the middle of the night because her pacifier had fallen out. She would suck on it between meals, and in fact was without her pacifier only when we removed it from her as punishment. We let her suck her pacifier mostly because the alternative was listening to her whining and begging for a pacifier...

Then an idea occurred to me. My husband and I had been talking about getting the girls bunk beds for some time. We had been eyeing a model from Ikea. It is a very low-lying bunk bed, so low that the lower mattress rests directly on the floor (so our 11/2 year old would not get injured falling off), and the upper bunk is not too high either.  We recently received an Ikea catalogue in the mail, and I showed our toddler the photo of the beds. I asked her if she wanted one. She replied "Yes!, I will sleep on top, and my sister can sleep on the bottom." I replied that it was a good idea, but that once we got the bunk bed, she would not be allowed a pacifier "because girls and boys that are old enough for a bunk bed are too old for a pacifier."  She thought it over, and decided that she still wanted a bunk bed...

And so it was that last week-end, I picked one up from our local Ikea, and my husband and I (but mostly my husband) put it together. Not only do both girls love their bunk beds, but our toddler has now gone almost a week without a pacifier. In fact, their first night in their bunk beds was the first night ever that they both slept through the night!

Final score: Parents 2-Kids 0!

Before: 2 side-by-side beds

After: space-saving bunk beds

Enjoying their bunks!

3rd Year Goals

Sharing a seat with her sister

Feeding her sister

Unbeknownst to her, we had set out some goals for our toddler's third year. In fact, they were things that we were hoping would be accomplished by her third birthday.

Firstly, we were hoping she would stop drinking from her bottle. This was one goal that she readily accomplished on her own. One morning, when she was around 2 1/2 years old, she refused to drink milk from her bottle. I thought that perhaps she was coming down with something...In fact, she had suddenly decided that she had outgrown her baby bottle!

Secondly, and probably most importantly, we were hoping she would sleep through the night. For several months now, unless she is sick, she wakes up only once. Usually anytime between 3 and 6 in the morning. Thankfully, she goes right back to sleep, and wakes up for good anytime between 7 and 8.

Thirdly, we were hoping she would be potty trained. She had shown some interest at around 18 months, then lost interest for another year. For about six months now, she has consistently been using either the potty or the toilet over 95% of the time. Occasionally she will have accidents during the night, but this is usually after we have forgotten to have her empty her bladder before bed. And occasionally she would refuse to use the potty. One day not too long ago, our stubborn daughter retained her urine for 8 hours until finally relenting!

The other day, I realized to what extent she understood the concept of potty training. She was playing with her dolls. She placed one on a play potty, and told her: "I have a very special surprise for you. But first you have to do a pee in the potty."

Lastly, we were hoping that our toddler would give up her pacifier. This, I think, will prove to be the hardest goal to accomplish. Just prior to turing three, we told our daughter that when she turned three, she would not be able to use her soother, as she would be a big girl. She seemed to understand, exclaiming "I am not three" even after she had turned three. We attempted to remove her pacifier shortly after her birthday. She managed to fall asleep that night, but then woke up countless times, and would simply not go back to sleep. She was so loud that she woke her sister up. Finally, exhausted, we relented, and gave her the dreaded soother. The next morning, I would discover that she had her first ear infection...so perhaps not the best time for the experiment. We are planning on experimenting again very soon, or perhaps even going cold turkey...Then just today, something very interesting occurred. She had been playing with her Mickey Mouse Application on her iPad. She then brought me her soother, saying," I don't need a soother, Mickey Mouse does not have one." So perhaps there is hope after all...

Pacifier vs.Thumb

Sucking her thumb

Our baby has recently discovered the soothing effects of sucking her thumb. She sucks on it to fall asleep, when she wakes up, and to soothe her inflamed gums. We proffered our cranky baby a pacifier after her 4-month vaccinations, but she wanted nothing to do with it.

Pacifier at 2 years old

Our toddler, at almost 2 1/2, still sucks on her pacifier. Although, on occasion, she mimics her sister and briefly attempts thumb sucking.

I, for one, prefer that our baby sucks on her thumb. Mostly because she can simply suck her thumb (and hopefully soothe herself back to sleep) when she wakes up in the middle of the night. Almost every night of her young life, our toddler has woken us up because her pacifier has fallen out.

The proponents of pacifiers claim that you can take the "pacifier away from your kids", but not so with a thumb! It sounds easier said than done...I do not look forward to the day (sometime in the next few months, I keep telling myself) that our toddler parts with her pacifier.

For now, it appears that our baby has chosen thumb-sucking. And it should not be problematic so long as she stops on her own before her permanent teeth come in...

alveolar prognathism caused by
 thumb-sucking in a 7-year old girl

10 Things

Jumping with Joy

As Baby # 2's arrival rapidly approaches, I can't help but think back to my wish list. At least 10 things that I had hoped would be accomplished before her arrival. All involving Baby #1. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Potty Training. Shortly after she turned 18 months, we purchased a potty. Initially, she was very intrigued. Within the first week, she had 7 successful trips to the potty. How easy is potty training? we thought to ourselves. Then all of a sudden, she lost interest. Since then, she enjoys sitting on her potty, but refuses to lower her pants. We do have a plan though. We purchased some cloth training underwear, and some Smarties as rewards. She doesn't think too much of her training pants, but ran to her potty today with great speed when she realized she would be rewarded with Smarties. She was only partially successful in filling her potty, but there is certainly hope...

2. Sleep in her own bed. She slept with us for the first 5 or 6 months of her life. We then tried to transition her to her own crib. With partial success. However, when she turned 18 months, she climbed out of her crib, and so we converted her crib to a toddler bed. Now when she wakes up in the middle of the night, she simply makes her way to our bed, jumps up between the two of us, where she spends the remainder of the night. We tried returning her to her bed on a few occasions, but the effort it took to get her back to sleep alone seemed too great compared to just all falling asleep in the same bed. If we are lucky, she joins us at 4AM. When we are unlucky, she joins us at midnight.

3. Sleep through the night. She has slept through the night on a dozen or so occasions. But perhaps because of the ease with which she can get out of her bed and into ours encourages her to not sleep through the night?

4. Fall asleep on her own. When she is exhausted, and the situation is right (e.g. a smooth car ride), she might fall asleep on he own, but for the time being we still rock her to sleep. However, since she has given up her afternoon naps, she falls asleep with great ease in the evening, and very quickly. Just not on her own. But at least we get a few hours to ourselves before we too retire for the night.

5. Stop drinking formula, and start drinking cow's milk. I breastfed her until she was 15 months, and then transitioned her to a soy-based formula as we thought she was allergic to dairy at the time. After allergy testing at 18 months of age, we discovered that dairy was no longer a problem. However we simply stuck with the same formula because we knew she liked it. Over the last 2 months, we have tried on several occasions to replace some of the formula in her bottle with homogenized cow's milk. She did not seem to notice the change. However, her bowel movements became looser, and I feared lactose intolerance. In hindsight it may have been a coincidence, as she simultaneously had a cold virus (which, depending on the strain, can sometimes also lead to looser bowel movements). Currently, we are attempting for the third time to replace part of her formula, and so far so good.

6. Stop drinking from a bottle. We have her down to 4 bottles/24 hours. One at bedtime; one around 6AM when she wakes up. The two other bottles are during the day; one right before nap time, and the other when she wakes up from her nap. However, now that she does not always nap, I have tried placing the milk in a Sippy cup instead. She drinks it, but not nearly as much. Her appetite generally varies quite a bit, but if there is one things that we can count on, it is for her to drink all 4 bottles. I am hoping that one day soon, she will simply refuse to drink from a bottle, just as she refused my breast milk when she turned 16 months.


7. Give up her pacifier. We try using it only for bedtime, and during long car rides, but truth be told, we have not tried very hard to get rid of the soother. With all the other things to accomplish, we thought we would leave this to last. We will probably draw the line though at 2.5years...mostly because anytime I am out and about and see a 3 year old with a pacifier, I cringe.

8. Hold conversations. While her vocabulary has expanded significantly since my post on speech, we are still not holding conversations. She has now added Cookie, Papa, Kaka, Peepee, Happy, Yucky and Up to her short list. But it is difficult to explain to her the importance of using a potty, or staying in her bed when the conversations are unilateral. I truly believe this last point will facilitate many of the other items on my wish list, but it is the one that we will have to be most patient with.

I can no longer think of the other two items...or perhaps there were simply 8, and "10 Things" just sounded like a better title. One thing is certain, the arrival of Baby # 2 will create some significant change. She may well regress on a few items, but it may be the impetus for positive change on other items. For starters, the four of us will simply not fit in the same bed...