LITTLE ROCK — Cathy Frye and I have been writing Forces of Nurture for more than two years, and I still can’t predict what will resonate with readers.
Some topics elicit a trickle of e-mails. Others set off a deluge.
I aroused a storm of feedback earlier this month when I wrote about Sophie’s thumb-sucking.
Wow. Readers really care about this. Everyone, it seems, has a story and an opinion about the topic. I got a slew of e-mails, people popping by my desk and even a couple of calls from doctors.
I am grateful for the suggestions.
Most readers had the same message: Leave her alone and she’ll stop on her own. This affirmed my instinct.
Quick update: She’s still sucking her thumb but seems to be tapering off. We’ve been putting vinegar on her thumbs before bed, and she’s been proudly reporting to us when she musters the will to keep her thumbs down during times of stress and fatigue.
We praise her when she doesn’t suck and we kindly remind her when she absentmindedly returns to the habit.
We’ve also tried a few suggestions from readers and will resort to more if she’s not off the thumb by her fifth birthday in December.
Here are some of my favorites:
A dental hygienist and mother of two said she was trained to suggest coating the finger with rubbing alcohol, but experience taught her that didn’t work. Her suggestion was to help Sophie pick out a favorite perfume and spray her thumbs with that. It would taste bad, but smell lovely, prompting her to sniff her thumb instead of suck it.
“Hopefully this won’t lead to her sticking her finger up her nose!” the woman wrote.
A few readers suggested that Sophie’s thumb-sucking was my problem.
“Is it hurting Mom’s concern about what others think? I’m not being ugly, just saying think about why it’s so important to you,” one grandmother wrote, adding that if I let Sophie get her fill of oral gratification now, she would be less likely to adopt nail biting and smoking later in life.
Some weren’t so nice.
“Are you sure you don’t want her to stop just because of your parental ego? Maybe thumb-sucking isn’t [politically correct] right now.”
I got several e-mails from grandmothers. One of my favorites signed off, “Been there, done that, glad it’s over!” More than one gramma pointed out that they’ve never seen a bride walk down the aisle sucking her thumb.
A few readers suggested I entice her with a “carrot” by finding something that she really wants and telling her she can have it only when she stops sucking her thumb.
One reader wrote about her daughter, saying, “She began to talk about wanting her ears pierced about age 5.
Then the light bulb went off - bribery!” While we’re on the topic, I have to share this suggestion for getting Benny off his pacifier.
From Gerry Todd of Fayetteville: “Get a copy of [The Old] Farmer’s Almanac ... and find the section on weaning livestock (cows I assume).
This all has to do with the phases of the moon. The almanac will tell which days each month a farmer can separate the calves from their mother so they won’t bawl. This works for kids on pacifiers, too. It worked for me and it will work for you. On the day or days denoted, just put your child to bed without the pacifier and there will be (should be!!) no crying.” Cindy Murphy is a news reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. She and her husband live in Little Rock with their 4-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son. She and Cathy Frye are co-editors of LittleRockMamas.com. E-mail her at
Family, Pages 33 on 09/29/2010