Like Sister, Like Brother

Oh No!!!! It's happening again! I don't know what it is about my kids and finger sucking!

Mia was around 18 weeks old (3months) when she decided to toss aside her binky and pick up finger sucking. At the time, I didn't mind since it made things easier for us. We didn't have to keep finding her lost binkys, replacing them when they fell out and she cried, or constantly sanitize them. I thought it was cool that she found her built in binkys, her two fingers on her right hand. Well looking back, boy what a mistake it was letting her get into that habit. It was/is probably the worst choice I have ever made regarding Mia. The finger sucking, over time, has caused so many problems. They made her first two teeth (her two lower middle ones) crooked, her top two middle teeth are pushed out, she has a slight lisp, and she keeps getting sick from touching bad things and then putting her fingers in her mouth plus the older shes getting the less and less cute it looks. Granted the older shes getting (she is pushing 3) the finger sucking is getting less and less. She no longer needs to do it to fall asleep, however, she still does it whenever she has her soft blankets. I have no idea how to break her from this awful habit.

Now Alex is following in her footsteps... and a bit early too I might add. Adrian and I both have noticed that he is getting obsessed with munching on his hand. It got to frequent that I brought it up to his doctor asking if he could possibly be teething already!? She said no and mentioned that babies often find their hands and like to munch on them. I still think it is a bit excessive since whenever Alex finds his hand he goes nuts and even starts to making growling like sounds!!

Recently I have noticed him trying to find his hands whenever he loses his binky while trying to sleep. I have to literally wrestle his hands away from his mouth just to reinsert the binky. He doesn't like it at first but eventually gives in and takes the binky.

Then last night I walked into the room to check on him and was shocked by what I saw. He was dead asleep with TWO fingers in his mouth, the exact same fingers Mia uses only he used his left hand instead of his right!!! OH NO!!!

I am not sure what I am going to do about this. I really want to try and stay on top of correcting this since I don't want him to run into the same issues Mia has.