Thumb and finger sucking can cause a high palate, crooked teeth and lead to problems like snoring. How can you help your child stop?  

How to Stop Thumb-sucking: step-by-step

First, review this plan and if your child is over 2 1/2 and can cooperate with this program, start by choosing a coach. You will be doing the daily work, so often it helps to have someone you can check in with who is not the child’s parent. It can be a family friend, grandparent or a professional myofunctional therapist. Choose someone your child likes and respects.

Step 1: Get the child on-board

Your child needs to understand and agree with why they need to stop sucking their thumb. At this age, children still have a lot of magical thinking so this technique works well with them:

Take a flashlight and have the child look at the roof of their mouth and show them that it looks like a thumb print. The ridges on the roof of the mouth are called palatine rugae and they are nature’s suction cup for the tongue. Now the child has a visual.

You can also use modeling clay and show them what happens when they put their thumb in the clay. Talk to the child about how the same thing happens in their mouth when they suck their thumb. Their thumb is putting a dent in the roof of their mouth. Show them that their teeth are being pushed out.

Make the point and tell the child “your thumb is putting a dent in the roof of your mouth” and your thumb is pushing your teeth the wrong way. Then ask the child something like “if I were to show you a way where it would be fun and easy to quit and you would get lots of prizes, would you want to stop??

Hopefully the child says yes!

Step 2: Go Shopping

Get an athletic sock (or two if they suck both thumbs) and buy a lot of little prizes. Together with the child, draw a smiley face on the toe of the sock and give the sock a name.

Next, empty out a drawer in their room or get a special box and this will be their “thumb-prize drawer”. But don’t put anything in it. Tell them it is the prize drawer and if they keep their sock on all night, you will put a prize in it before morning.

Step 3: Go to Bed

Before bed, attach the top of the sock to their night shirt sleeve with safety pins. 

At bedtime, while they have the sock over their thumb-sucking hand, sit with them and ask them to remember how excited they were the night before their birthday or a holiday and have them think about it and rub their tongue on the roof of their mouth. If they need help, have them pretend there is peanut butter where their thumb usually pushes.

After the child falls asleep, check on them and if the sock stayed on, put a prize in the drawer or prize box for them to find when they wake up.

Step 4: Give Prizes and Stickers

For every night that the child makes it through the night, they get a sticker to put on a calendar and once they make 30 days, they get a big prize.

During the day, give them lots of activities to do with their hands, like coloring books. And you can buy finger puppets to wear in the car and for tv time as a reminder not to suck their finger or thumb.

Step 5: Praise and give attention during the day

It’s also very important to give tons and tons of positive attention during the day. Praise the child every time you see them trying not to suck. Kids love attention! The chances of them being successful at stopping the sucking go way up if they are getting encouraging attention.

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Step 6: Check in with their coach

Help the child call their coach every day during the first week. That outside accountability will have an effect on the child’s subconscious and can be fun if their coach is someone they like or respect

After the first week, you might want to see the coach in person and they can look at the child’s palate to see if the “thumb print” is going away. Then they can tell the child how proud they are of them.

Celebrate Success!

After 30 days, plan an End of Thumb party. Bring balloons and their full sticker chart to their coach. And then have a big reward, maybe a day trip with a best friend or something the child really wants. And continue to praise them for how hard they worked.

This may sound like a bit of work, it does get easier after the first few days. But no matter what, It’s way way easier than dealing with the consequences of thumb sucking like the macerated skin on their hands, the illnesses they get from putting viruses and bacteria in their mouth all day, the prolonged orthodontic treatment, surgeries or wearing a CPAP machine for sleep apnea in the future.

Good luck!

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