So Soothe Me!

They say there's a sucker born every minute. I don't know about that, but there were certainly two born in our household.

When you've got a couple of suckers on your watch, what do you do? Well, you end up jumping into the fray of the ongoing Mommy-battle: The Thumb, or The Soother? In one corner, we have The Thumb. It's all natural, can't be lost (we hope), the first thing that babies explore and the go-to choice for sucking. In the other corner, we have The Soother. You lose them constantly, have to disinfect them repeatedly, babies have to learn how to keep them in their mouths, BUT they are theoretically easier to get rid of later on, and will supposedly cause less dental problems down the line.

The Boy was a finger-sucker from very early on. Ensconced in the blissful two-on-one days of new parenting, we allowed it. Encouraged it even. I (all too vividly) recall hours of sitting on a couch with a (clean) finger stuck in his mouth. You couldn't go anywhere or do anything, but whatever. He eventually found his own thumb, and hasn't looked back since. For me, it's not all the big a deal. I sucked my thumb until I was five. My parents tried to get me to stop, but the more they harassed me, the harder I sucked. I just did it behind their backs. I did stop, eventually, but it was on my own time. On my own terms.

You'd be surprised at how much flak we get from the public, though. Daycare teachers have made passing comments about it. Nothing offense, but still. The ladies who run the local fruit market chastise the Boy when he sucks his thumb. I let that go, but it's a struggle. Total strangers have actually reached into my stroller and pulled the still wet thumb from his mouth. That made me mad. Now that he's three, we're trying to gently discourage him from the thumb-sucking. From everything I've read though, it isn't a real problem dental-wise till they're four or five.

Not surprisingly, it turns out that the Little Guy is a sucker too. If anything, he a bigger sucker than his brother. I've checked to make sure he's not hungry. He just wants to suck. A lot. And he gets mighty angry if he can't. Gone are the days, though, when we can leisurely sit and, well, give the Little Guy the finger. And you can't get anything done at all. Not. One. Thing. I'm not trying to be a Super Mom here, either. There are just some things that I have to do. Want to get the Boy dressed. SCREAM! Want to make the Boy some breakfast? SCREAM! Want to give the Boy a bath? SCREAM! Want to feed, dress or bathe myself? SCREAM, SCREAM, SCREAM! And then just to change things up a little, he will SCREAM A LITTLE LOUDER!!!

So this time around, we are trying to introduce the Soother. The Boy didn't take to it at all, but we only made half-hearted attempts really. This time, the Soother is a survival mechanism. I've always been slightly opposed to soothers though. I've seen some parents use it to shut their kids up, instead of the intended purpose of soothing a child who really doesn't want anything else than to suck. It left a bad taste in my mouth, and it stuck with me. It's all too easy to offer the kid the soother anytime he cries, rather than seeing what's actually wrong first. In fact, I'm already worried that I've fallen into that trap. But I simply don't know what else to do. It's impossible to function normally with an underscoring of SCREAMING every time you have to do necessary household tasks. So far, it's helped a bit, but the Little Guy is having difficulty keeping it in his mouth.

How do you feel about Soothers vs Thumbs? Is one better than the other? Is one wrong, and one right? And how in the heck do you get the kid to keep the pacifier in his mouth if sucking is what he truly wants to do?? I don't know if I'm doing the right/best/smart thing here, I'm just doing what I can to get through the day. I may regret it later. Let's just hope that the "later" is a long time coming.

And now I'm going to go and try to dry out my water-logged finger.