My son was almost half a year old and began to sleep with the thumb of his right hand. Every time I finished my bedtime routine and put him on the cot, he sucked his fingers and quickly went to sleep, and when he woke up in the middle of the night humming, I put his right hand to his mouth, and he could suck his fingers to sleep. I was very happy at the time - when the child of the same age was still nursing, hugging, and waking up at night, he was able to fall asleep on his own.
When he was almost 1 year old, his finger sucking skills were in full swing. Every night from preparing to fall asleep, starting to eat hands, until the fingers slide out on their own when they are completely asleep. In the middle of the night, I often hear the sound of eating hands next to me.
At this time, Grandma first questioned: Will it be bad for the teeth to eat your hands like this? Do you want to quit him...
I told my grandmother:
This is the child's way of self-soothing and gaining a sense of security, which is very important for his stable emotional development, no intervention is needed, and when the child grows up and can develop more ways to gain a sense of security, he will stop eating fingers.
Most children will quit eating hands before the age of 2, and eating hands for a short time will not have any adverse effects on children. So don't worry, just wait...
So under my popular science, the whole family continued to let him eat his hands and sleep. Fast forward to 1 and a half years old, the situation did not improve as I expected, but more serious, my son's time to eat before going to bed changed from a few minutes to half an hour, without the slightest intention of quitting himself.
At this time, not only my grandmother, but even I began to play drums in my heart, and after the family discussion, we started the first attempt to quit eating hands.
First try
1. Alternative therapy
The first thing I thought was to find an alternative, such as a pacifier closest to my finger. In fact, my son used a pacifier for a short time when he was 2 or 3 months old, but then he would eat his hands and it was useless.
I naively thought that as long as he could re-accept the pacifier, it would be much easier to quit the pacifier than to stop eating hands in the future. But I forgot that pacifiers are ok with small babies, and 1 and a half years old is difficult to accept again. Sure enough, when he was given a pacifier, he played with it like a toy and didn't suck at all.
I've also tried to introduce other comforters, such as comforters and toys he likes, but he has made a clear distinction between toys and comforters, giving anything when he's not asleep, and once he's ready to sleep, he has to suck his fingers and push something else aside. In short, fail!
2. Aversion therapy
It's about making the taste of the fingers unpalatable.
I tried to apply my son's fingers with yellow water and mustard before going to bed, he was very happy to cooperate, and then put his hand in his mouth as usual, and as a result, he cried with a whimper, took out his finger to look at it, licked it, continued to cry, sucked and licked it again, felt that the taste was lighter, it was acceptable, he stopped crying, and he ate his fingers and slept...
I regretted it after a few times, and he cried with real sadness, doubt, and fear: Why did his favorite finger become unpalatable? Isn't this a good friend who sleeps with me all the time? Why has it changed... The family thinks it's good to keep going.
But I vetoed it, and I didn't want him to quit his fingers because he hated it, after all, it was his mental support when he was insecure, something he liked. Thus, aversion therapy also failed!
3. Avoidance therapy
It refers to finding a way to keep his fingers out of his fingers, such as with the help of gloves, and a bracket that keeps his arms from bending (who came up with this, it's amazing!). ）。 I tried on gloves, and the first time he put them on cooperatively, but they were ripped off as soon as they were about to fall asleep, and then they didn't cooperate at all.
Ah, I forgot again, he was 1 and a half years old and not as defenseless as a baby. Avoidance therapy, failure!
So, the first attempt failed, and I decided to give up, thinking that I would not wait any longer, and I would talk about it later.
Second try
However, this situation still showed no signs of slowing down when his son was 2 years old, and his thumb had been puffed out of a large blister and cocoon, not at all like he could quit himself, so quitting eating hands was put on the agenda.
This time, I want to try another way, after all, he is 2 years old, language communication is no problem, and cognition is improving.
1. Read a picture book and tell him about the dangers of eating hands.
For example: only a baby eats hands, you grow up, it is time to say goodbye to your fingers; eating hands will eat bacteria, bacteria run into the stomach we are sick, how uncomfortable it is to eat; eating hands make a big cocoon, the hands are not good-looking... He listened a lot and said to himself: I don't eat hands, I grow up. In his heart, he began to accept the truth that he should not eat his hands.
2. Help reduce the time he spends eating hands.
When he is confused, I will help him take his hand out, sometimes he will continue to sleep, sometimes he will put it back, then I will wait a while to help him take it out.
3. Try to quit spontaneously.
Slowly, he was only preparing to eat his hands during the time when he was ready to fall asleep until he was confused, and I began to say to him before going to bed: Should we try to eat less hands today? You can take your mother's hand to sleep, and you can't help but eat it again. He would say: Well, I don't eat.
But the temptation of the hand was too great, at first he was obviously irritable and unable to fall asleep, and after doubling the usual sleep time, I would release his hand, and he would suck and fall asleep immediately.
The next day I would praise him: Last night Mom saw that you were trying so hard not to eat your hands, just ate for a short while, awesome, let's keep working hard today.
Finally one day he fell asleep without eating his hands at all, though he had been rolling over in bed for a long, long time. This process takes about 3-4 weeks, but as long as there is a first success, the following is easy to do.
Quitting the "roadblock" on the road: getting sick
As soon as the abstinence from eating was effective, my son caught a cold. The nasal congestion during the peak period made him extremely uncomfortable, irritable, and difficult to fall asleep, and I was very distressed about this, just thinking about how to make him fall asleep quickly and rest more, so I let him eat his hands, and then returned to the pre-liberation night... When I recovered from my illness, it took me nearly another month.
It may be a compromise during the illness, and the little one also begins to be "weak-willed". He sometimes said: Mom don't grab my hand, and then turn sideways to secretly eat, when I find out, I will play Lai and say "just eat it", which makes people cry and laugh.
I told him: Mom knows that the monster of eating hands is too powerful, it really can't help it, when you can't beat it, let Your mother help you pull your hand.
Successfully quit eating hands and fall asleep
Although there were several iterations during this period because of illness, overall, the time he did not eat his hands to fall asleep was getting shorter and shorter, and although most of the time he needed me to help him pull his hands, he had fully accepted that he did not need to eat hands.
When I completely stopped eating hands (including illness), my son was over 2 and a half years old, which means that I spent more than half a year before and after, without compulsion, crying, affecting sleep, and creating psychological shadows, so that he completely quit eating hands.
Although it took a long time, I think it was worth it to let him take the initiative to accept and recognize this matter.
Now he no longer needs me to hold hands to sleep, after 2 and a half years old, he went to daycare to take a nap and did not eat his hands, and occasionally he turned to the previous picture book and said: This is what the baby reads, I don't read. In addition, the cocoon on his hands also faded, and his teeth were completely unaffected.
Dr. Yingying Wang commented
In the child care clinic, parents often encounter questions, what should children do if they always have to eat hands? How to give children the problem of quitting eating hands, every time I have countless emotions.
As a pediatrician, I also inevitably encountered my son's finger sucking, anxiety in the middle, and almost all the pits in the matter of quitting eating hands, hoping that this sharing can help many parents who have the same problems.
Healthy babies eat their hands
Almost all children will eat their hands as early as 2 months of age, this stage of eating hands may not have anything to do with appeasement, but a very important skill of children, from perception to "I have hands", to be able to raise their hands to the eyes to observe, and then to accurately put into the mouth, exercise the hand-mouth-eye coordination ability, this stage of eating hands is almost awake, it does not need any intervention, is the necessary stage of the child's ability development.
From 3-4 months of age, when the mobility of the hand is better and the range is larger, some children will not be limited to eating the hand itself, and will start to grasp things with their hands to eat, and they will naturally pass the stage of eating hands (of course, when there is nothing to nibble, they will also eat their hands).
But some children find that sucking their hands can relieve boredom, gain peace, and bring security, and gradually develop into a self-soothing behavior, especially during sleep. I don't regret the initial indulgence of my child eating hands and sleeping, I always think that this is a very, very important thing for his heart, and that it is more important for him to feel safe than to eat his hands itself.
As children grow up, there will be more and more ways to gain a sense of security, and a large number of children can gradually stop relying on eating hands before the age of 2 and naturally quit. Although my child did not get better by the time he reached the age of 2, it did not mean that I should have taken measures to get him to quit eating hands earlier.
So when do you have to quit eating hands?
Parents eat their children's hands, and the biggest worry is generally their teeth. Indeed, prolonged or sustained finger sucking does affect the bite of the teeth, the development of the maxillofacial area, etc.
The American Academy of Pediatrics currently considers:
Don't worry unless 4-5 years old is still sucking your fingers; the American Dental Association recommends abstaining from nutritious sucking (including finger sucking and pacifiers) before age 4.
After the age of 2, if the child's eating hand is slowly getting better, he can also not be in a hurry to intervene, because most of the dental problems caused by this time occur in the front teeth, usually as long as you stop eating, the condition of the teeth will automatically improve.
However, if by the age of 4, there is still no tendency to stop, it is recommended to intervene, one is to help the child master other ways to relieve anxiety, and the other is to ensure that the child completely stops the behavior before growing permanent teeth to avoid the occurrence of teeth occlusion.
Combined with the current national conditions (most mothers estimate that they can't stand their children in kindergarten and still eating their fingers), the risk to teeth, and the difficulty of withdrawal, for children who rely heavily on hand sleep, they can intervene in withdrawal between the ages of 2-3.
Premature forced intervention is not only very difficult and unable to achieve good results, but also leads to more anxiety in children, and even some children use other sucking behaviors to replace such as biting the lower lip, which is not worth the loss.
As for how to quit?
Pacifiers are the best alternative to sucking nipples and fingers.
It can be introduced after the child has been steadily breastfed (probably after at least 3-4 weeks, causing it too early can cause nipple confusion), and there are many advantages to a pacifier compared to eating hands:
Easy to disinfect and clean, relatively more hygienic; the pacifier's baffle can prevent excessive sucking, long-term use is less harmful to the teeth than sucking fingers; easier to quit than eating hands, after all, the pacifier can be taken away, thrown away, and the fingers can't ...
Generally, the better time to introduce a pacifier is before the age of 6 months, and children after the age of 1 usually have other ways of pacifiing, and the possibility of re-acceptance of the pacifier is very low.
But the introduction of other comforters by older children cannot be said to be completely useless, but it is impossible to have an immediate effect.
If you want to introduce a pacifier, you need to gradually advance: first familiarize yourself with other pacifiers, then accept the use of new pacifiers while eating your hands, and finally use the pacifiers to play an alternative role and abstain from eating hands. The process was generally long, and I didn't stick to it.
The essence of aversion therapy is to remind, not punish. That is, when the child subjectively has the desire to overcome the desire to eat hands, but can not do it, the bitter taste agent plays a reminder on the finger.
My child was only a year and a half old at the time, and he had no intention of quitting eating, which was inappropriate. Wearing gloves to abstain from eating hands also works through reminders, and for 1 and a half-year-old children, failure is inevitable.
The most important thing to quit eating hands is to win the cooperation of children, and you can use picture books and stories to make children understand why they need to quit eating hands without intimidation.
This is also the reason why withdrawal after the age of 2 is relatively easy, children can communicate and understand, and children under the age of 2 are difficult to obtain such "internal drive". Abstaining from eating hands requires a gradual approach, which is easier to implement and more likely to succeed than a one-size-fits-all approach.
Pressure will make children want to eat hands more, and when gradually quitting, praise and encouragement should be used, and if the number of eating hands is reduced and the time is shortened, they can be praised. Don't use criticism and punishment in ways that may increase stress.
To sum up my own experience, I would like to say to parents
1. Almost all children will eat before the age of 1, and only a few will last until the age of 2-4, so don't worry too much.
2. Nervousness, anxiety, lack of parent-child emotional communication, and unmet sucking needs during infancy can aggravate the situation of eating hands. The first step in quitting eating hands should be psychological considerations.
3. For older children, it is really important to do a good job of psychological construction first and strive for the cooperation of the children themselves.
4. The abstinence from eating hands needs to be gradual, encouraging praise, language education, reminders and other methods can help children quit eating hands, do not criticize and punish, avoid intimidation or threats to children (before the child can not control himself, and does not find an alternative method, this may aggravate the eating behavior).
5. Allow for repetition or interruption, especially in cases of illness.
6. Intervention should not be premature, as intervention too early may be counterproductive.
When the child grows up and looks back, he will feel that eating hands is just a trivial matter on the child's growth path.
Although I have been anxious and stepped on the pit in the process of abstinence, I care about my child's feelings and do not continue to use simple and rough methods, which is the premise of ultimate success.
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Reviewer of this article
Dr. Chul Chung Medical