Two weeks ago (today), Briggs would not keep his thumb out of his mouth while we were playing. I threatened to put the yucky stuff back on his thumb if he didn't keep it out of his mouth. Well he didn't so I put some on. He kept his thumb out of his mouth the rest of the morning. I warned him before nap that he still had yucky stuff on his thumb. Well he either forgot, didn't care, or stuck it in out of habit while sleeping. Whatever the cause, he sucked his thumb, gagged on the taste, and then threw up in his bed. Oops! A nicer mom might have decided that causing your child to throw up in his bed might be a little extreme. This mom saw it as an opportunity. Obviously vomiting is a negative experience, so I was hoping that building off that negative experience might just be the solution we needed. And it was...mostly. We had one more nap-time vomiting instance a few days later, and I realized that he might be putting his thumb in his mouth without realizing it while sleeping. We made a little tweak to our plan and continued on.
We are now 2 weeks in to a thumb-free existence. I still put yucky stuff on Briggs's thumb once or twice a day, just as a reminder to him that it's there. He wears a hand sock on his right hand for naps and bedtime, mostly as a sleep-time reminder not to inadvertently put his thumb in his mouth. He never takes it off. Obviously the thumb sucking is a strongly ingrained habit, so we're not home free yet, but this has by far been our longest lasting success so far. I'm not saying that inducing vomiting is the best strategy to break a bad habit, but if it works...
Thumb free and happy about it.
