Should I try to stop my baby daughter from sucking her thumb?

ABSOLUTELY not, yea this can affect her teeth but not for a while thats years and years of the sucking the thumb habit, she is 6 months old. If you try to take her thumb away from her, she wont undertand let a lone tolerate the idea of it. You should begin the weening process when she is around 18 months and has some concept of NO and can understand a little, i mean she is just 6 months......come on now. My son is 14 months and still sucks his thumb, his teeth came in perfectly fine, of course if he sucks his thumb longer and longer his teeth will begin to push outward the roof of his mouth taking the shape of his thumb but right now and for a little longer she is and will be fine. I will start with my son when he is 18 months. Right now and back then if I did that, he would have turned my life upside down with temper tantums and everything else, this just comforts him, he sucked his thumb in the womb, I have the ultrasound of it. What I am trying to say probably isnt coming out clearly but I think i got the point across. Hope everything works out and good luck.

I sucked my thumb when I was little - I had to have braces but then loads of kids do so no big deal as far as I'm concerened!

My eldest (4) sucks 2 fingers - she started doing it at about 4months, now she only does it when she is tired/going to sleep. The youngest (10 months) has a dummy.

I personally prefer fingers or thumbs as they naturally stop when they are playing as they can't play and have them in their mouth at the same time.

I think that if your baby has found a way of comforting herself it's great - she will settle a lot better and then everyone will sleep better :)

MIL's are great but sometimes they 'know' too much and have to be ingnored ;) lol

my daughter sucks her thumb she is now 6 years old it is a problem trying to get her to stop but her teeth are fine its up to you at the end of the day a dummy can do as much harm to teeth as a thumb so you lose either way however we did find that if dummy falls out and she cant find it she will wake up and cry but with thumb she always knows where it is

My younger sister sucked her thumb until she was 14 and her teeth are perfect.

I am pleased I came across this question as my 4 1/2month old daughter has started sucking her thumb too and I had been wondering about it, but since reading everyone's posts and remembering my sister and I just checked her teeth I have no more worries

Thank you x

My son,7,sucks his thumb i did try to stop him as a baby but he was very determined! Nothing worked at all.

I'm not too worried about the teeth issue as i have a twin sister who sucked her thumb until she was 11 i didn't suck my thumb but our teeth are no different,hers dont stick out or anything.

I've tried Stop n Grow and all sorts,he had his tonsils out and couldn't suck his thumb for two weeks but still went back to it!

Dont worry too much just let her do it x

My friend was told by her dentist that a dummy is better than the thumb. The dentist said thumb sucking can cause teeth problems. His theory was you can take away a dummy but you can't take away their thumb. However, if your little miss rejects the dummy and favours her thumb, I don't know how you can stop her! At least, not at this young stage in her life.

there is nothing you can do to stop her sucking her thumb at this age, it is a natural thing for babies to suck their thumb especially when they are teething and most grow out of it. dont worry too much about it just now, if she is still doing it hen she is older you can try to get her out of it then as she will understand better what shes doing

I have a little girl, too. She's almost two, and she used to suck her thumb, too. I wouldn't worry about it too much. If you are concerned, and want her to take a pacifier, I read this in my Parenting magazine: if you want your child to take the pacifier, try reverse psychology. When you put the pacifier in her mouth, let her suck on it a little, and then take it away. Try it a few times a day, and then she should take to it better, we did that with our daughter when we weened her off of the bottle at night. (Bad habit you DON'T want to start.)

Babies generally suck their thumb to soothe themselves, which is good, because they need to learn how to rely on their own resources. The ability to regulate or control one's behavior and emotions is an important developmental challenge. When your child sucks her thumb, she's finding ways to make herself feel better without your help.

You don't have to stop your child from sucking her thumb right now. In general, thumb-sucking is more irritating to parents than it is harmful to kids. Your baby will stop when she's ready and has developed other ways of soothing herself.

We've given our daughter (7mths) a dummy for bedtime since day one, even though we got endless comments from relatives and freinds! dummy falls out in the nights, now she's a bit older, she wakes up and puts it back in (if she can find it!) and we get a good night's sleep!

If she wants to suck her thumb, i'd let her! i sucked my thumb and it didnt cause me any probs with my teeth! :)