Sucking on Fingers

I would try paying no attention to it for awhile, perhaps a couple of weeks and see if that helps. When something becomes a "big deal" as evidenced by Mom's commenting on it, somehow doing it stays in the front of the mind and it becomes harder to quit. It can also become an unrecognized or even a recognized power struggle.

I've noticed that with myself. When I notice that I'm clearing my throat more often I can't seem to stop. When I stop noticing it goes away. As a child I started burping. The more I burped the more I did it. My aunt would tell me to stop and I couldn't. Once everyone stopped paying attention, in a couple of days I not only stopped but I realized I was making it happen. I think this worked because burping became my problem to figure out. Of course, burping all the time was uncomfortable for me. It had become a nervous habit. Our family was split up with me and my brother living with an aunt and uncle.

Could your daughter be anxious about something and this is a way of self-soothing?

My 10 yo granddaughter chews her hair. She and her mother have been told that she's a sensory person who needs to be doing something with her mouth to help her focus. She's been diagnosed with ADHD and was in a special writing class this past year. Students are allowed to chew gum in that one class only and it did help her stay focused on her writing while she continued to have a difficult time staying in her seat in the regular classroom.

Her mother asks her to take her hair out of her mouth, over and over during the day and evening. She takes it out for perhaps 10 minutes and it's back in her mouth. So, I suggest that telling her to take her fingers out of her mouth is apt to not work.

It could be that she's just discovered that sucking on her fingers is comforting. I don't know if your daughter would benefit from having something in her mouth but you could try having her chew gum or suck on something.

Usually this habit especially for a girl this age is insecurity or some type of trauma that causes the insecurity. I would watch, listen and even talk to your daughter about why she is sucking her fingers.

N.

There could be two things going on: A. she's using fingers as a soothing/security habit or B. she's getting some attention from adults trying to curb the habit--which sometimes makes it more appealing. Not the habit, per se, but the attention.

If it's A. , try to figure out what she might be worried about. Is she starting kindergarten or first grade this year? Wary of the transition? Also--has she developed in another area lately? Six is the age when children start to reason and work on figuring things out in their own way, and the intellectual development can be excited but maybe a little overwhelming. (The whole Brazelton theory of "One step forward, one step back" doesn't seem to have a specific age. That is to say, even older children, when stretching and growing in one direction, can experience regression in another area.)

In regard to addressing it: if it were me, I'd just point out moments that she'll need to wash her hands. No judgment, just "Oh, I remember that we were just at the store. Only clean fingers can go in your mouth." It can be aggravating (my 3 y.o. sometimes likes to lick his entire hand at bedtime, so I do understand the "ick" factor and the "aw, geesh, do you really have to?!" feelings) , but I keep my mouth shut about him being too old and such. I just treat it as a health issue. My experience has been that, if we don't say much, don't use aversion devices (like painting fingers with that nasty-tasting stuff, which they just suck off anyway) and *let their peers correct it*, these things usually go away or are retired to bedtime. Peer correction is quite valuable as our kids are getting older, because they tend to be less comfortable and far more aware of fitting in than we might suspect.

Ultimately, it's your daughter's habit to kick. If she can figure it out on her own,--without incentives or punishments--there's a better chance it'll end for good. If she's self soothing, she'll need to come up with another comfortable alternative that makes her feel better, and if she can get some gentle help with this, too, she'll feel supported to grow instead, which is preferable to her feeling like she's doing a *bad* thing.

I would have her wash her hands everytime she puts her fingers in her mouth. This might getting annoying for both you and her, but she'll probably get tired of this pretty quickly and eventually stop. We do this at the school I teach at and also say something along the lines of "we don't put our fingers in our mouths (or noses) because that would spread germs." They start to really understand this when we go on to describe where our germs would go when they get on our hands ("If you have germs on your hands then touch a toy, where do the germs go? Then what happens when your friend, Jenny, goes to play with that toy?"). I hope this helps, good luck!

My baby does this too so I just asked my dentist about it. She said that around age 4 is when it can start to impact the teeth alignment so it's probably best to stop the habit as fast as possible. She's old enough that you could try the icky nail polish if you want but I'd be more inclined to talk to her about it and the reason why and also how it will hurt her teeth. Good luck!

My 4 month old son does this but he is doing cuz he has finally got a tooth popping through! And he does it real bad when he's really tired and don't have his pacifier. In babies its prolly one of those things that they know they can do it. Now that he's working on rolling over n sitting up he doesn't do it as much as he did. Nothing to be worried bout until she mite be gagging her self or something else. Good luck!

My daughter went through an awful oral phase that started at about 4. She started biting nails, sucking on her hair, sucking fingers all at once in her mouth. She hasn't completely stopped the behaviors, except the hair chewing. Her hair was gross and awful to comb out. She wants to grow her hair longer for pony tails, etc. and that was the deal to grow it out. She still bites her nails, sometimes toenails -thankfully doesn't go barefoot that often. The sucking on fingers has decreased tremendously.

The more I pestered her about it, the more she did it. I finally ignored the behavior and it is subsiding. I bit my nails until I was ten, so I can't complain about that too much.

I do think it had something to do with starting preschool and the pressures. We will see what comes up this fall when starting kindergarten.

Oh, has she gotten her six year old molars in yet? This might be the reason. I think my daughter was also getting her four year old molars at the time she started sucking her fingers. She didn't suck her hands much when she was a baby and was definitely more oral at 4.

D.

Working in office settings we often lick our finger tips to thumb through pages, as we file, etc. I hated using that tacky finger stuff. When I worked in a lab in the medical field we had to watch a safety film. They showed us how the cup of pee spills on the paper work, or a vile of blood may leak or how the same hand that drew blood would be the same hand that handled the paperwork. There was no more wonder why the paperwork was sometimes rippled and I welcomed the tacky finger.

I haven't experienced my kids sucking on their fingers. However I used to suck on my fingers when I was around your daughter's age. My parents couldn't get me to stop, so my mom bought some kind of clear liquid stuff that she put on my fingers. I don't know what exactly it was, but there is a product called "Mavala Stop" that is pretty much the same thing. It is harmless, but tastes VERY bitter. It worked great at stopping the habit!

Since it's a new habit, you might try to find the reason for it. But if it becomes a constant thing, you'll really want to find a way to stop it so she doesn't end up having dental problems.