Sucking fingers vs dummy

[Tobily]

I'm really torn on this - my DD is 18 months and a total thumbsucker Her baby teeth are crooked from it, they came through straight and now one of them is already out of alignment. Makes me worry for her big teeth

I was always a "no dummies" person, that lasted a week after she was born. I gave her one because she wanted to suck, but she ditched it at 6 months as soon as she had control of her hands.

So here I am today with a totally commited thumbsucker....I'm letting her go for now but it bothers me a bit, I think I'll try to encourage the dummy more with the new baby.
Sorry I'm not much help

[Liz]

I'm with my mum on this one (LOL.. doesn't happen often!). If Tallon starts sucking on his thumb or fingers, I'm going to introduce a dummy, since you can throw a dummy away, but you can't throw away a thumb! Altho mum is already hassling me to introduce the dummy but I don't want to). But if he does start sucking on his fingers I'll consider it.

The way my mum got me off the dummy was she didn't replace my last one, and I sucked it until it was flat and horrible, and one day I just went "yuck!" and didn't want it any more. hehe.

[Trillian]

Having had experience with both, my first two had dummies, which we were able to take off them when they were 6 months and 12 months respectively. Paige on the other hand has sucked her thumb from birth and refused to take a dummy. She only sucks it when she is tired and touch wood it has not misaligned her teeth, but yes there is the problem of trying to get a thumb sucking child to stop. We are happy to let her suck her thumg for comfort, and really don't know when we will try to discourage her from doing it or if we will let her decide.

I have heard of people putting the nail biters polish on their kids thumb nails to stop them, but I'm not sure I'd like to do that to her. We'll just see how it goes.