Eliminate The Dangers Of Thumb Sucking During The Holidays
Eliminate The Dangers Of Thumb Sucking During The Holidays
While your primary thoughts around the holiday season are likely around what gifts you’ll be purchasing for your loved ones and little ones, this time of year also represents the closing of one year and the advent of a new year. With the latter comes the inevitable slew of New Year’s Resolutions. But instead of setting goals for yourself this year, if you’re a parent of a toddler, why not set a resolution for getting them to stop sucking their thumb in 2019? Let’s see how you can eliminate the dangers of thumb sucking now!
What problems can thumb sucking do to your toddler in the future?
It’s been estimated that as many as 1/3rd of children will develop the habit of sucking their thumbs as infants. While it might seem like an innocent – if not cute – act, it’s the gateway to significant problems with their oral development in the not-too-distant future. As the saying goes, kids grow like weeds at that age and said growth represents the foundation on which they’ll turn into kids, teenagers, and then adults.
It’s clearly not abnormal for kids to start sucking their thumbs, but it’s also a habit that needs to be addressed and rectified as soon as possible. If it isn’t, there are a myriad of problems that could arise as a result. Even some of the problems that seem the most benign could end up plaguing your child for the rest of their life.
Break the finger and thumb sucking habit now!
If the habit continues past their toddler stage (usually defined as being up to three years old), it can very well result in speech impediments, such as when children have a lisp when saying “s” sounds (that usually end up sounding more like “th” sounds). In more extreme cases, where the child’s thumb spends an abnormal amount of time in their mouth, it could also result in problems with the formation of their first set of teeth; after all, how are the teeth going to grow into the right place if there’s another appendage taking up all that extra space?
But even if your child’s teeth come in properly while they continue to suck their thumb, that doesn’t mean you’re out of the proverbial woods. Just by the geometry of their hands and their jaws, the act of sucking their thumb inherently causes the pad of their thumb to push their jaw forward ever so slightly. With time, that can very easily cause misalignments between their upper and lower jaw, resulting in teeth either becoming crooked or not sitting on top of each other properly. In the latter case, if they slide into the wrong grooves of the opposite jaw, that will cause the teeth to sharpen (as they file against one another), which can cause a lot of problems with a child’s gums when doing something as simple as chewing.
Choose a better way to solve the problem!
If you set your new year’s goal of having your child stop sucking their thumb, the good news is that there are a myriad of potentially successful ways to go about this. If you’re a positive-reinforcement believer, praising them for not performing the act, or using alternate methods of engagement for your child (since thumb sucking is often a symptom of boredom or anxiety) work great.
If you’re someone who’s looking to immediately correct the habit, there are wearable solutions that you can safely put in place to stop the habit quickly.
Regardless of which way you go, the most important aspect is that you resolve to avoid the dangers of thumb sucking during this holiday season to make it a goal for you and your child.