# Almost 3 year old starting to suck fingers



## 4Marmalade (May 4, 2004)

My ds (33 months) has never been much of an oral child. Never took a soother or bottle and never seemed to put much in his mouth as a baby. I spent a lot of time comfort nursing him and that was it. Lately, he has started putting his fingers in his mouth and sucking on them. He has never done this before so I find it pretty unusual. He has all of his teeth, including molars so I don't think that's the reason.

I imagine that it might be related to the arrival of his sister 2-1/2 months ago. The finger sucking only started about 1 month ago. Maybe he finds it soothing?? It just seems strange that he would start to self-soothe by sucking his fingers now when he's never done it before. I am still nursing him and although we are trying to cut down a bit now we weren't at the time he started the finger sucking. He was actually nursing a lot more.

Anyone experience something similar? I'm not sure how to approach this with ds. He says he does it because he "likes it". I try to talk to him about germs, etc... because he puts his hands on everything and they're in his mouth a lot but it hasn't helped much. I don't know what I should be saying to him. I'm also feeling guilty if he is doing it to self-soothe. Kind of like I can't help him with his feelings about his sister or whatever else might be upsetting him.


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## hottmama (Dec 27, 2004)

Wow, my 30 month old just started sucking on his hand too (his fingers or knuckles). He's never done so before, and does it whenever he's tired now and can't nurse (he's never done it at home). He loves having his nails painted so I've been telling him that if he puts his hands in his mouth he can't have his nails painted anymore because nail polish is toxic and I don't want it in his mouth. That works for about 2 minutes and then his hand is back in his mouth. I don't know why he's taken this up all of a sudden.


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## celrae (May 3, 2005)

One of my girls did this too, I just didn't pay any attention to it and it's gone away for the most part. Don't worry!!


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