Biting callus on thumb

[drsweetie]

Hi! DD is 2 years old and has sucked her thumb since, well, forever. We don't try to prevent her from doing that. However, she has developed a callus on her thumb from the thumb-sucking, and within the past couple of days she has taken to gnawing on and biting the callus. I don't want her to mangle her thumb -- is there something I should do about the callus-biting? Or will she probably stop it herself if the biting causes her pain?

Ellen

[ktdid74]

DS still has a callus on his thumb since he sucked his thumb for 4 years. He still does it in his sleep, too. I'm willing to bet she'll stop if it hurts and if you point it out, she'll do it more. DD sucks her thumb a lot but still doesn't have the callus. I'm sure it'll pass :)

[Roleysmom]

Roley has a huge callus on one of the two fingers that she sucks. It looks like it hurts, but I have asked her and she says it doesn't. I'm folloiwng Katie's line of thought, that she will stop biting if it starts to hurt. I do think that her one finger is always going to look a little different, even when she stops sucking it, but I guess we'll see.

Paula -- mom to Roley Julia, January '02

[Zana]

DS has sucked is two fingers since 6 mths and at 15 mths has calluses on both. At first they were huge blisters and he still sucked (bit) through that. So I dont think they care about the pain!

Lately he only sucks when he is not doing anything (going to bed, sitting in car seat etc). As long as he is occupied its fine.
So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he will grow out of it soon.

[kalebsmama]

DS still sucks his thumb when he is tired or hurt. He also has a big callous and does chew on it at times. Over the winter I noticed at times that it was cracked open and looked painful. I worried mostly because if it hurt too much to suck, he (and we) would be miserable!

Hopefully he would have stopped if it actually hurt. And hopefully his finger eventually looks normal again once he stops sucking. Don't ask me how we're going to get that stopped!