Is Thumb Sucking Normal?

Sucking of the thumb is a common thing for babies. It’s an expression of natural sucking instinct. Babies do it not only in the first month of their lives, but even in mother’s womb they try to suck their fists. Afterwards they can suck fingers, hands or other things, for example, pacifiers.

Normally a wish to suck thumb reduces after age of six months. But a lot of children continue doing this. They can get used to calm themselves down by this action in cases when they are hungry, scared, confused or tired and want to sleep.
This habit, no matter how innocent it may seem, can cause stomatology problems in future. The result of it may occur as wrong growth of teeth, or they can be pushed ahead and deform the upper palate. Wrong occlusion can get fixed when the child stops sucking the thumb. But the longer it lasts, the more chances on having the problem serious enough to wear braces in future. Also such kids can have problems with speech, wrong pronunciation of sounds and pulling out the tongue while speaking.

How to get rid of thumb sucking habit? In most of the cases it disappears by itself. But not always doctors recommend to pay much attention to it. Nevertheless, there are some signs that your child has a problem and it needs to be solved.

1. Your child also tries to suck its hair, especially in the age of 12-24 months.

2. Continue sucking thumb intensively after the age of 4-5 years.

3. Ask help to get rid of that habit.

4. The habit caused stomatology and speech problems.

5. Thumb sucking makes your child feel shy, other children laugh at him.

As a rule, parents can successfully solve this problem by discipline measures. Try to explain to your child the harm of this habit, praise him when he doesn’t do it. Don’t be too strict, it may cause stress state which your child may try to calm down with sucking thumb or other harmful actions. Try to pay more attention to your child, spend with him as much time as possible, do everything to distract the child from doing this. The more relaxed the child feels, the more different activities and parents’ attention it has throughout a day, the less chances will be that he will feel the need to suck thumb.