Thumb Suckers

I have a thumb-sucking child.

My first four children were happy with their pacifiers. We weaned them off before they were one year old. It worked great.

My fifth child wouldn’t take a pacifier, but sure did like his thumb. Either thumb would work.

It seems cute to most people, seeing my little man with one hand in his pocket (although lately, if he’s in shorts, it might be down his pants – but that’s fodder for another post) and the other with a thumb in his mouth.

I’ve received some sympathetic smiles and words of advice from other moms-of-thumb-suckers. I appreciate these, although the tales they tell make me even more apprehensive of the years ahead.

Just the other day, a mom commented on how nice it must be to have a thumb-sucker because he self-soothes. Her (unsolicited) comment and advice to me was to just “let him be” and he’d “give it up” when “it was the right time.” (I’m told that can be in the latter teen years if they don’t get braces in their tweens or early teens.) Apparently, I must have given off the vibe that I’m planning on ripping his thumb out of his mouth every time I see it in there.

I was reminded of this mother’s comments (about how lucky I am) as I stood holding my almost-two-year old today in the pediatrician’s office as the doctor told me that my son most definitely had Hand-Foot-and-Mouth disease.

Yep, I’m so lucky to have a self-soother.

Funny, Lady, he needed more than his thumb since he started to feel sick. He was only soothed while clinging to me all his waking hours.

I’m thinking it is more fortunate that he still thinks Mom can fix anything, thus why he felt better (even while still in pain, I’m sure) in my arms. The thumb had nothing to do with it. Well, it might have had something to do with him CATCHING HFM ….

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