A girl, her thumb, and a blanket..

I started sucking my thumb as a baby and had to have my pink blankie with the satin edge to rub between my fingers while I did it. I had a white blanket identical to the pink one, but refused the white one and HAD to have the pink. Around when I turned 5, my parents I guess decided it was time I stopped. They came up with the plan of cutting it smaller and smaller until there was pretty much nothing left. LOL. It worked!

Fast forward. Ryan sucked his thumb here and there, but never really got attached. He went back and forth between that and the pacifier and around a year old, he ditched the thumb and strictly took the pacifier. Around 18 months, he started getting the binky only at naptime and bedtime and we took it away at 2 years old with NO problems. It was like he didn't even miss it!

Fast forward again. Brooke has been sucking her thumb for awhile now. More and more as the days go by. She will now put herself to sleep by sucking her thumb, which admittedly is nice that she is able to soothe herself. I try not to worry about her getting too attached and not wanting to give it up. Who knows how it will play out, but for right now I think it's good for her. Makes it nice too because she can't lose it vs. a pacifier that you can constantly be searching for.

Well, this last week or so Brooke has really taken to laying under her activity play mat during the day. I started laying a blanket over the mat on it in case she pukes (I plan to try to resell it when she's done with it, so I'm trying not to ruin it, lol). So anyway, the past few days we've noticed her grabbing a hold of that blanket and holding it while she sucks her thumb to go to sleep! She has frequently put herself to sleep this way (my next goal is to be able to put her down awake at night, but first we need to get her crib up...and room to put her crib...but that's a whole other post). Even before we noticed her using the blanket this way, I would notice her grabbing her bib or clothes to hold on to while sucking. LOL. Soooo, I think I'm going to get her a small blanket that she can...get attached to...I guess you'd say. My twisted theory is that if she gets to the point where she doesn't want to stop sucking her thumb (I'm talking at like 4-5 years old) and she HAS to have the blanket to do so (like I did) that we will be able to "wean" her from her thumb by only giving her her blankie at naptime and bedtime and then eventually taking it away. It's okay, you can laugh at me. LOL.

Here are a few pictures from yesterday of her "in action". I have a couple more, but Photobucket was being a butt and wouldn't upload them : P.

LOL!! She grabbed the blanket and rolled over.

You can also sort of see...she was *almost on her belly! After I took this pic, I pulled the blanket away and tried to coax her the rest of the way over. Her arm was stuck under her and she got SUPER ticked off. LOL. So I ended up helping her out. It won't be long until she's doing it on her own!