A child picks up very cute habits in Leeds, even when it’s in the womb and thumb sucking is one of them. It appears to be a great source of comfort and is the first thing it will turn to if it doesn’t have a dummy in the mouth. But it’s a habit that they should grow out of by the time their secondary teeth come through, or being more precise, a habit they need to be out of when the secondary teeth come through. Over a prolonged period of time, thumb sucking can do quite a lot of damage so it must stop. To do this, you can offer incentives to get them to stop, buy specially designed gloves or thumb guards, or keep enlightening them about how bad it can be to carry on sucking and if need be tell them exactly how bad: as new teeth come through, they are fairly weak until they set in but constant thumb sucking throughout this growth can make them deformed and crooked, cause problems in the oral cavity and in the ‘bite’, lead to facial deformities and cause the child to talk with a lisp. However, you must be sure that the way you tell them doesn’t become a confrontation as this can have the opposite affect to what’s required.