Thumbsucking and Pacifiers

To try and prevent Jared from sucking his thumb we'd bought some stuff online that you paint on the fingernail and supposedly tastes nasty. Indeed it does, very bitter. Well it wasn't working for Jared, or so I thought. After I thought about it I wondered if Jared was able to maneuver his thumb in such a way as to not touch the nail when sucking, therefore avoiding the bitter taste. After sucking my own thumb various ways I concluded this was quite plausible. I then decided to give this polish stuff one more shot but this time I would paint the entire thumb and not just the nail. SUCCESS!!! We've done it for 2 weeks and he's doing great! There are times he's brought his thumb close to his mouth and then lowered it just as quickly. The only time he sucks it is if he's really tired and I've forgotten to put it on his thumb for a few days. I don't want to put on his thumb anymore because sometimes the taste gets on his food when it touches his thumb so I feel bad but the few times he's sucked his thumb I don't want to resort back to thumb sucking so we will continue painting his thumb until I'm certain he's done with this bad habit.

Below is a clip of Jared helping me finish up the bowl when making brownies:

At one time I thought Spencer might also become a thumb sucker but that phase didn't even last a week. Instead I've been insistent upon him taking a pacifier (I'm all about having a method to soothe my child when they're crying, just preferably not their thumb). He's never been a huge user of the pacifier and really all I've used it for for the past 2-4 months has been for sleeping. There were times I'd put him down without the pacifier and he'd do perfectly fine without it. I wondered why I continued to give it to him and realized it was more for my benefit for the "fear" he'd cry once I laid him down. So about a week or more ago we dropped the pacifier. It's still in his crib but I don't give it to him for sleeping and he doesn't put it in his mouth. So much easier then Jared but also Jared was a lot easier baby seeing how he self pacified himself. I can't have it all :)

Check out those blue eyes!