Thumb Sucker

Back when Holden was about 8 months old we Ferberized her. She was not sleeping and I was losing my mind. The strategy was to let her cry for increasingly longer periods of time before going in to rescue her. In 1 1/2 days she was sleeping for 12 hours straight, going to bed with no tears, and not using her pacifier. However, she quickly found her thumb and was addicted within 3 days. At the time, we did not care what she was doing as long as she, and we, were sleeping.

Now it is three years later, and that thumb is still her favorite thing in the entire world. I can't get a picture of her without it, when I paint her nails the thumb remains naked because she can't wait for it to dry to suck it again, and her teeth are getting messed up from the constant sucking.

I see the battle looming on the horizon and I am scared. We have to get this under control. Maybe getting her to only suck it at bedtime is a a good first step. Someone else had a special chair, and her son could only suck his thumb when he sat there. Anyway, I have begun looking for ideas other parents used and this Pennsylvania Dutch Fairy (SCARY) Tale is by far my favorite.....

A mom is leaving the house and her son is being left at home on his own. She warns him not to suck his thumb because the local tailor is on the prowl for thumb suckers and when he finds them he chops off their thumbs with his giant scissors. Well, the boy does not heed the heed the warning and sure enough, the tailor discovers his nasty little habit. He sneaks into the house, lops off the boy's thumb, takes it with him as he leaves, and abandons the child thumbless in a pool of his own blood.

I was hysterical when I read this story. I think I need to locate the entire book which is a collection of "childrens stories" which are all equally inappropriate and morbid. Here are a few pages from the thumb sucker story. I may print them in poster size and hang them in Holden's room.