# Tabasco sauce for thumb-sucking babies ~



## Aura_Kitten (Aug 13, 2002)

while my dad was over visiting us the other day, he relayed to me this story about my oldest sister. i'll try to quote him as closely as possible ~

_When she was about 11 months old, her mom and I got really concerned that she was still sucking her thumb at night. We didn't want her to get bucked teeth... So we took her to the doctor, right, and he says, "you need to put something really distasteful on her thumb so she stops sucking it," and so I says, "well like what?" and he tells us to coat her thumb in Tabasco sauce. He says, "That's so hot, the stuff will burn her mouth. She'll stop sucking her thumb really fast." Well of course I didn't want to hurt her but I trusted the doctor and I wanted to do what was best for her, you know? So I asked her mom, "Do you really think we should do this?" I mean I was practically in tears right, and her mom says "oh yes, the doctor said we have to," and so that night we were both bawling. We coated her thumb with Tabasco sauce and then put her in her crib for bedtime, kissed her, and went out into the living room. We were holding each other, her mom was bawling, and we were waiting, just waiting, any minute we knew we'd hear pained shrieks. We were terrified. Well we kept waiting, and nothing happened. Finally after about ten minutes we hear a few little whimpers... we run in to check on her and there she is, standing up in her crib, holding out her thumb... and very clearly she says, "More!"_

:LOL

the thread about what threads we'll never see at MDC reminded me of this.

eta ~ keep in mind my oldest sister is now in her early 40's, if that gives you any reference for the time period in which this doctor was making his judgement call.


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## Evergreen (Nov 6, 2002)

:LOL cute! That would have been me as a baby, I loved spicy foods! My dd is the same way ( I guess it is all that spicy food I ate while pg and bfing)

It is too bad that so many parents back then followed advice like that even when it obviously pained them to do so.


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## indiegirl (Apr 15, 2002)

:


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## *LoveBugMama* (Aug 2, 2003)

:

Funny!

And sad at the same time... How terrible that doctors actually recommended things like that....


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## Stevie (Jun 20, 2004)

rolling on that LOL


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