How to de-thumb a baby

Ingredients

1 12-ft roll of scotch tape

1 adorable baby

Time to prepare: 2 yrs, 3 days

So we’ve all seen many many photos of Rowan with thumb in mouth, which his dentist said needs to stop soon. After a little discussion between mommy and daddy, we decided to tell Rowan that his thumb was getting a bad boo-boo because he was biting it so much, so we were going to put tape around his hand while he slept so that he wouldn’t bite it anymore. This of course prevented him from putting that thumb in his mouth that night. Except that he kept his other thumb in his mouth the whole time.

The next night Rowan excitedly came and said he wanted tape, because as everyone knows, tape is this magical thing that fixes books and toys and apparently little boys. This time we taped both hands and Rowan spent the night uncomfortable but asleep.

The third night, Rowan came to us and said “Mommy, I no want tape.” So we explained to him that the tape was there to protect his boo-boo, but if he can stop putting his thumb in his mouth on his own, we wouldn’t put any tape on. The poor thing spent the night tapeless and asleep but constantly whimpering and battling the urge to put the thumb back in. It was difficult listening to him struggling his inner demons, but true to his word, he didn’t put it in his mouth, and except for one time at the daycare when another child accidentally hit him, he has kept his thumb free and boo-boo-less.

If someone as small as Rowan can set his mind on and succeed in giving up something that was detrimental but of such comfort to him, then surely the rest of us can give up a few of our bad habits as well. All it takes is some good old-fashioned willpower. And tape.