Princess For A Day

Grace has been doing great on stopping her thumb-sucking habit.  I haven’t seen her do it in several weeks!  Last time we visited the dentist, he encouraged us to start trying to kick the habit…she’ll need braces regardless due to her mama’s genetic overbite, but stopping the thumb-sucking will curb the work that needs to be done.

I spoke to several friends to get suggestions about kicking the habit.  I still have nightmares about that horrible-tasting stuff that my mom put on my thumb as a child, and I only wanted to do that as a last resort.  Here are the two techniques that worked for us:

1. Provide a replacement item that is held in the thumb-sucking hand at night.  For us, it was a poodle dog beanie baby that “sleeps” under her pillow at night.  She holds Duchess with her right hand and keeps it under her pillow, far away from her mouth.
2. Offer an incentive when she consistently demonstrates kicking the habit.  For us, it is nail polish on her fingers.  We told her that she cannot put nail polish in her mouth, so she can only get her fingernails painted when she doesn’t suck her thumb.  After a few days of not sucking her thumb, we made a big production of going to CVS and picking out her favorite nail polish color!

Only one time have I needed to take off her nail polish because I caught her sucking her thumb.  It was quite traumatic for her, but I made the point!  She hasn’t done it since.

To celebrate several weeks of being thumb-free, we made our first visit to a nail salon!  For only $5, my local salon made her feel like a princess.  They cut, shaped, polished, and applied two sparkle flowers to her thumbs!  Although I nixed the bright neon green polish she picked out at first, she was in awe the whole time, perfectly happy and perfectly still! 

When we got home, she wanted to put on her Cinderella dress and pose!  Her favorite new place is the “painting store!”