I've joked over the years that we knew Paige would need lots of help in the oral category with her thumb sucking and tongue thrust...and we are in the thick of those days! From the combination of the 2, she had a pretty significant lisp and pretty messed up teeth, but oh she was cute and the thumb sucking was totally worth it for the self-soothing!
Her first time finding the sweet spot {grin}
Our dentist was very chill about her thumb sucking, and around Kinder or 1st grade suggested we start talking about it to see if we could get any interest from her to stop. She would try for maybe a couple of days and then tell us she wasn't ready!
Little open bite with her tongue sticking out and sucking away!
We did a round of speech therapy last year with her that was relatively successful. When she 'passed' it was with the knowledge that we'd probably need more speech therapy once she stopped sucking her thumb, but hey, we'll take a victory where we find one.
Fast forward to this past spring. The ONLY time Brent has ever taken the kids to the dentist. Paige needed 4 fillings AND the dentist said there was significant change {for the negative} in her mouth due to the thumb sucking and it was time to stop and see the orthodontist for braces. Gulp.
We made an appointment with the orthodontist where he told us we needed to get her to stop sucking her thumb immediately {putting in a crib}, we needed to adjust the roof of her mouth {expander}, followed a month later with braces...and if we didn't get the thumb sucking stopped, she would eventually need jaw surgery. Double gulp.
Step 1: Stop thumb sucking! We waited for school to finish and immediately the next week...the crib and expander went in.
I was a little nervous how all of this would go, but we both handled turning the expander well {we delayed 2 or 3 times throughout the 20 turns needed to let the soreness subside but overall that was a non-event}. I was most concerned with her ability to fall asleep without sucking her thumb. It took us a couple of days but we got there very quickly! The first 2 nights, it took her maybe 30 minutes to fall asleep instead of her usual 10, but then she realized she could HOLD her thumb against her mouth and still snuggle Sackie, and the world was right again!
Thumbless sleep!
Step 2: Then about 6 weeks later...it was time for braces! Little Miss handled getting her braces like a champ, and they bothered her way less than the expander and way less than braces bothered Trent at first, so this was definitely a win!
You can still see that big open bite, we are ready to close it up!
She's had braces for about 4 months and her mouth has changed SO much! It's been wild watching it happen. One of her bestie's moms works at our dentist's office and even commented on how great her mouth looks.
8 weeks in...getting a power chain!
Already so much progress!
I keep forgetting to take a current picture because it's improved SO MUCH from this, it's kind of mind-blowing how quickly it's changing!
