Thumb-Sucking

My little Noah found his thumb somewhere around 10 weeks old and hasn't looked back.

He was an interesting baby with his nursing habits. He could only nurse 4 minutes on each side and then I'd have to make him stop. If he ate longer than that he would spit up a ton, but if I stopped him, he would be fine. But he still needed to suck, so I offered a pacifier, which worked fine for him until he found his thumb. It was so precious to see him sucking his thumb and to not have to give him a pacifier.

As he got older he would fiddle with my hair and suck his thumb. Finally I showed him he could play with his own hair (mistake on my part, but hey, hindsight is 20/20). So he graduated to sucking his right thumb and holding the hair on the crown of his head with his left hand and poking his thumb down on the ends of the hair.

He only sucks his thumb if he's tired or bored with nothing for his hands to do, like watching TV or sitting in his car seat.

The thumb sucking really bothers Tim and he's been trying to stop it for quite some time, but I haven't been fully on board. My main concern was getting him potty trained--check. Clearing up his diarreah--check. Weaning Simon--check. Now we're ready to battle the thumb sucking. Noah and I talked about it and he is now fully on board to stop.

Sort of. It's such a hard habit for him to break and it takes 100% consistency and watching him constantly on our part, which is hard.

Over the summer we have tried various ways to give him incentives to stop and they work for a day or so and then lose their luster. I'm pretty well out of ideas except to say "Thumb out!" a million times in an evening. Simon even says it, which makes me laugh.

When we talk about him sucking his thumb, he keeps saying, "We hate it!" But a little while later it's back in his mouth.

Any ideas out there?