`How to Make the Baby to Stop Sucking Hands

The sucking of hands ends (rather soon too!) My now two year old daughter did the same thing (refused a pacifier), and the only time I catch her with her hand in her mouth is when she is teething and distracted watching a movie and zoning off...never just walking around and playing. My now 10 week old daughter does the same and I believe she'll be like my first with it ending soon.

Be grateful she is sucking her hands. Hands cannot get
lost during the night. She is self comforting. She
won't suck her hands forever. She is only 11 weeks and
needs to do this. Relax and enjoy that she has found
a way to keep herself content.

Sucking on hands can be a cue of hunger. Why would you prefer she take a pacifier? At that age, a pacifier can fall out and they cry for you (even at night) to put it back in, baby can control her own hands. If she uses a paci for an extended period, it can be tough to break them of the habit - there's no reason not to suck it, your hands are always free and it doesn't keep you from regular activities. A hand/thumb sucker will be kept back from doing certain things if the hand is in their mouth, so when they need to use it, out it comes. I know I am not answering the question that you asked, but I would not discourage the hand/thumb to replace it with a binkie.

Let her suck on her hands/fingers--this is most appropriate and she is learning how to self soothe- extremely important for her entire life!
It is a natural process and is healthy for her psychological development. In fact sucking her hands/ fingers may be better than the pacifier and she is still so very little. She has much to grow still and will make changes throughout her many stages of development.

Once a baby is used to a pacifier you need to have 4 or 5 on hand in case they get misplaced. It is very hard to take them away from toddlers also. Some infants take to a pacifier and others refuse them. Why not let your baby enjoy her own way of soothing? My grand daughter sucked her thumb while holding her bottle to go to sleep. When she was older she held her sippy cup and sucked her thumb. Now she has no sippy cup and doesnt suck her thumb at all.

Coming from a mom who's child was a pacifier sucking junkie, I would have much rathered her suck on her fist. Our oldest was so easy to distract w/out the pacifier - at her 6 mo check up her ped said to lose the pacifier and that's what we did. Our youngest wouldn't part w/it until she was almost three. I guess a lot of motherhood is choosing our battles, but this is one battle I wouldn't handled much differently. Good luck!

Hi A.,

It is a good thing that your little one has been turning away the pacifier; don't push it on her, but you can keep it handy if she wants to use occasionally. Some kids will try to keep them forever and then parents have to fight to take them away without doing emotional damage. It can become a nightmare.

As for sucking on her hands, its probably just something to keep her busy for now. More than likely, considering how young she is, she will stop it on her own in a few weeks. They always move on to something new when you least expect it. I wouldnt be too concerned about it. Keep her hands clean while she is doing this.

If it does go on, you can put socks on her hands. Stores always have the hand booties for newborns so they don't scratch their faces with their finger nails. I have never used them for my kids; it is a learning experience for them to touch anything they can - I never wanted to take that away.

Good luck and remember, most things she does now will only be temporary and she will move on to something else soon. Enjoy every day and every new experience.

I wouldn't worry about it. My boys didn't care for the pacifiers either. So, come to find out, my oldest got his first tooth at 3 months, and my second at 4 months and my third at 6 months. So, let your child suck her hands, but she may be teething perhaps too, so I used homepathic Teething Tablets I got at Wal-Marts and now they have them at Hannaford too.
The oly that bothered me was that she can get germs in her mouth from her hands, but don't get so worried or hooked up on it. That happens and all my boys survived.
She'll be fine.

Hi A.,

In my opinion you are lucky that she can self-sooth. She will grow out of it in a few months, and you will feel lucky that you don't have to break her of the pacifier habit when she is a toddler.

B.

I know someone who is a speach therapist and when her daughter started sucking her thumb at 10 weeks she kept socks on her hands so that she could not suck her thumb. She sewed little socks on the ends of the sleepers so they would not come off. The baby did not like the feel of the sock in her mouth so she stopped.

Just an idea !

I agree with the moms who said you are lucky. It is totally natural for babies to want to gnaw on stuff, including fingers. My 6 month old daughter is the same way. And now I am glad she is learning to self-soothe so I don't have to be a slave to the pacifier. And I can't imagine why anyone would put socks on their babies hands...

Hi Angie!

It's the funniest thing, our sweet girl was caught on sono-camera @ 7 months of development sucking on her tiny fist. Our daughter is three months old now and needless to say we went through similar issues. What we did was just stay on it, meaning whenever one of us would catch her sucking on fingers or fist we would say "Aha you want a binky?" and give her the binky. If she spit it out we would just patiently put it back in her mouth. This of course was done after ruling out hunger for sure. I also would pop the binky in her mouth after meals to sweeten her taste for it, and in our case it worked. Now since she is babbling she enjoys making sounds into her fingers and hands but I really don't catch her sucking on her hands or fingers like we did in the first and second months. I do not recommend putting sugar or other sweetener on the pacifier, I would watch our daughter for opportunities to make the paci seem like the best idea, like I said, after feedings, when tearful, when drowsy.

This worked for us. Good luck, sister.

T.

Honestly, there is nothing you can do about it. You can put those mittens on her hands but she can suck through them or she can wiggle them off. It's not a huge deal that she's sucking her hands and it certainly doesn't mean it's going to turn into a habit. At this age, babies need to suckle and she's self-soothing. If that was taken away from her, you'd have a miserable baby that YOU'D have to soothe.

All of my sons took a pacifier briefly (from one to three months) and sporatically. None of them ever sucked their thumbs either. She needs to get enough suckling in or those bad habits could develop later.