Meanwhile, I hid her favorite bolster cover that was supposed to be in the wash in a place where nobody knows except me. This is because I know that if she makes a lot of fuss, my husband, for one, will not be able to persist, and will give in to her and gave her the bolster cover. Knowing himself, my husband didn’t want to know where I kept the bolster cover either.
On the second day, during nap time, my child asked for her bolster from her baby-sitter. But since I didn’t tell the babysitter where I kept it, and just told her that the bolster is in the wash, she told my child the same thing. That night, when my child asked for the bolster cover again, we told her that her bolster cover is not dry yet, because there has been a lot of rain recently. By the 4th night, we couldn’t use the same story anymore, because she wouldn’t believe it, so I told her that the wind was so strong that it blew away the bolster cover when we were drying it on the clothes line.
Up until now, although she did ask for it, and cried a little, things were still manageable. However, she did wake up every night and cried for some time, and the length of time when she woke up in the middle of the night was getting longer. On the 4th night when she realized that she was not going to get her bolster cover back again, ever, she was quite devastated. She cried harder and longer this time, but I persisted because I was determined to remove her addiction. I did everything I could to make her sleep without giving in. I told her loads of stories, hugged her, showered her with lots of expressions of love, played her usual lullaby, scratched her back, etc, etc. Finally, she fell asleep, without sucking her thumb.
From our side of the story, we knew that if she was able to sleep without sucking her thumb for 2 weeks, we could consider victory. My husband felt that my ‘lie’ was quite silly, and when she cried and fussed on the 4th night, he persuaded me to give the bolster cover back. He tried to convince himself that maybe thumbsucking is not so bad. Maybe she will slowly remove the habit by herself, etc, etc. But I reminded him that we needed to break this habit before she turns two, and told him all the side effects of thumb sucking.
overcome thumb-sucking addiction
