Friday, January 23, 2009

23. Thumbthumbthumbthumbthumb

Funny how the Infanta is exactly the same pose now as she was yesterday when I posted. Yes, Amy, complete with thumb in mouth - she's a real thumb sucker, for which her father and I are profoundly grateful. My in-laws may make remarks about how hard it will be to break her of that habit later, but I don't care. First off, I figure she'll stop when she's ready, much as I stopped sucking my two fingers when I was ready.

Second, Josh and I MUCH prefer a kid sucking their thumb to a kid who walks and talks and has a pacifier clipped to her clothes! Or worse yet, talks through her pacifier!

Third, it's not like she's always got her thumb in her mouth; she uses it as a boob substitute, mainly. If she's awake and sucking her thumb, usually it's because she wants to nurse, and is a good signal to me. If she's asleep and I'm done being a milk machine, I'll detach and she'll often promptly replace nipple with thumb. She just needs to suck, and it doesn't always need to be nutritive. Witness now - she's deeply enough asleep that she lacks the muscle tone to keep her hand up, but her mouth is still moving in a sucking rhythm.

I don't mean this for an indictment of moms whose kids use pacis for extended periods - or not much, anyway - me, I never intended to use them at all! I do well know, and learn better every day, that in parenting, as in the rest of life, theory ad reality often bear little resemblance to each other.

2 comments:

Karinda said...

Personally, I think it's a little bit awesome that you have a thumb sucker. I sometimes wish my ds would use his own fingers or thumbs instead of me being the only pacifier. LOL

Unknown said...

good for you for saying no to the binky! if you'd given her one, it would probably be glued to her. i have yet to see a kid try to talk around a thumb.