Skip to main content

Love Affair With Thumb

So, any mamas out there have experience weaning their rabbits from the thumb?

The Rabbit is now five and still sucking her thumb. Believe me. I don't think this is a huge crisis. I sucked mine until I was at least 7. Might have been 8.

But both her dentist and doctor are really putting the pressure on me to make her stop. Even telling her she has to stop.

Problem is her teeth, they say, and palate. She has a nice overbite. Nice enough that the teeth sometimes stick out when she smiles. I don't notice it. We're not talking Bugs Bunny. But they say this could permanently affect the permanent teeth. Sigh.

See -- I never had orthodontia. Even after my love affair with my thumb. So I have a hard time believing this is the cause of her overbite. I suspect it's her papa's family -- with their severely messed up teeth that required years of braces. Not to mention my own sister and her messed up mouth.

Tonight she went to bed crying, knowing she wasn't supposed to suck her thumb. And when I went to check on her she had burrowed her head under her covers -- covers she normally loathes -- and had fallen asleep with her thumb in her mouth, thinking I wouldn't spy her buried under her blanket of flowers.

I hate this.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Both DQ and Terrorist suck their thumbs/fingers as did I, I never needed braces or anything but I have been told by their dentist that they both have overbites. I'm chalking it up to Spouse, who needed braces etc, not their soothing methods and refuse to force the issue. My parents tried to get me to stop for years and failed. Rooster will give it up when ready and not a moment before regardless of what you do so don't stress yourselves out about it.
divrchk said…
My almost 5 year old still sucks his thumb. It drives me crazy since I wasn't a thumb sucker. We want him to stop but he refuses. If you find the answer, let me know.
sarah said…
Poor thing! Ethan's not yet discovered the tasty goodness of his thumb, but he is fairly loyal to his pacifier and the pediatrician gives me grief about it at every turn. I don't know how to take it away without breaking his heart, so I guess I'd better get back to work pronto to start saving for the decade of dental work he's going to require later on...

best of luck to you and Rabbit on this *little* challenge!

Popular posts from this blog

Apologies for being incommunicado this week and hope none of you out there are too distraught not to be receiving the usual almost-daily MotV missives. The reason for the silence is that I'm up to my neck, metaphorically-speaking, in research papers for my first grad course assessment. This experience has made me realise how rigorously un-academic I am in my thinking. It has also illuminated how reliant I am on red wine in order to get through endless evenings typing furiously on my laptop, not to mention the fueling of increasingly colorful curses that I feel obliged to aim at the University's online library system which consistently refuses to spit out any of the journals I'm desperate for (I refuse to believe this is 100% due to my technical incompetence...) Oh well, if this is the price one has to pay in order to realize a long-cherished dream then it's not all that bad... No one ever said a mid-life career change would be easy. Wish me luck!

A thought

Perhaps sometimes a gift can be delivered in the guise of a tragedy. It's just a matter of perception, after all. I suspect that the talent lies in looking beyond the surface to what lies beneath and beyond. And, of course, being able to make sense of it all and going on to apply that knowledge to building a productive way forward. Here's hoping.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

A friend recently emailed me to say that her big memory of her stay with us last year is that she had a great birthday, one of the few where she didn't 'act like a spoiled grumpy princess'. She tried to give me all the credit but as I explained to her, it was all down to having a fellow female organising the birthday fun rather than leaving it to her partner. Her email got me thinking about birthdays and how very different men and women are in their attitudes to celebrating special occasions. It also had me thinking about my birthday two years ago when I threw a major tantrum in the Carrefour car-park after being told that we were off to do the weekly shop, kids in tow, which was simply the final straw at the end of a very uninspiring day. In contrast, my birthday last year was rather lovely (a morning on my own in a spa with no mobile coverage, pure selfish bliss). This year - in a few short months, eek! - I'll be hitting the grand old age of 38. This will be my las...