So we managed to conquer the BEAST! When Lucy was 3 years old, she saw one of her friends sucking her thumb. It’s been a nightmare ever since. Most kids STOP sucking their thumbs at 3, not start. So here we were, 4 years later, and braces are definitely in the future for her (though with my genetics, that was probably a given).
We’ve tried everything (bribery, punishment, nasty tasting stuff on her thumb, gloves, everything).. She would always say that it was just too hard. Matt and I would say “You are a Wilson! Wilson’s can do hard things!”
A few weeks ago, her thumb was starting to crack and bleed a little. Her callus combined with the dry air and hard water was reeking havoc on her skin. I put some aquafor ointment on it so it would stop hurting. She was so proud of herself for not sucking on her thumb while it was goopy (though it hadn’t stopped her before, as I said, we’ve tried everything) that she would continue to ask that we put the stuff back on her thumb to remind her. After a few days she expressed her concern that she is getting much better at not sucking her thumb during the day but she still can’t stop doing it at night.
I said that was ok. She can’t help it when she’s sleeping, but that the better she is at not sucking her thumb during the day, the better she will be at night. That comment really seemed to feed the fire. And last week sometime, I crept into their rooms while they slept to smear Vaseline on various chapped parts (Spencer’s cheeks, the skin under Emma’s lower lip and Lucy’s lips) and I was happy to see that while I was disturbing Lucy’s slumber, not once did she put her thumb in her mouth. She almost did at one point, but even in her unconscious state, she did not succumb to temptation!
We haven’t seen that thumb in her mouth in two weeks! I’m so proud of her. We can all do hard things!
