Thumb Sucking – A Parent’s Guide
Dr Sarah Nackasha offers some advice and encouragement for parents.
Parents are all too aware of how young children are prone to suck their thumb. This is entirely natural for a period of time, but if it continues for too long, it can cause potential harm to their teeth, and also the roof of their mouth.
It is a habit that children often use to calm or comfort themselves, often sucking their thumb as they fall asleep at night.
Some children suck their thumb relatively passively whilst others do so more aggressively and it is the latter that is likely to cause the most harm. In today’s blog, The Dental Centre Bedford looks at the potential harm this habit can do, and also offers some advice to parents of children who do this.
For how long is thumb sucking acceptable?
Advice varies on how long children can suck their thumbs before stopping. Much advice in America indicates at around 4 years old whereas The British Orthodontic Society says that providing a child stops sucking their thumb by the age of seven years old, the teeth will usually correct themselves with normal growth. It is better to try to gradually wean your child away from this before the age of seven though, as creating a ‘full stop’ at that age is likely to be quite difficult, and potentially distressing, to implement.
After the age of seven, the adult teeth that are developing are less likely to correct the position themselves and your child may need orthodontic correction to avoid having crooked teeth and an incorrect bite.
How to stop children sucking their thumbs
