10 Dimes

I think I just paid Maggie a dollar to stop sucking her fingers!

I mean, she's been sucking her swear finger tall man and ring finger on her right hand for literally her entire life!

I haven't made the hugest deal out of it.  Last summer we made a lot of good progress.  I was thinking about how when people quit smoking, I've heard that they are more successful when the replace the smoking with chewing gum or something else. 

I got Maggie a cool Minnie Mouse water bottle to carry around so that if she wanted to do something with her mouth, instead of using it to suck her fingers, she could use it to drink some water out of her water bottle.

It worked for a while, but stopped for some reason.

Maggie's teacher says that she (Maggie, not her teacher, although she doesn't either :)) doesn't suck her fingers at school, so I know she can do it!

I gave Maggie 10 dimes the other morning. 

I told her that she could keep however many dimes are left at the end of the day, but I would take one each time I had to remind her not to suck her fingers.  

I thought for sure she'd end the day with like 4 dimes.

Nope!

Maggie sucked her fingers one time!  

I was making lunch and she was in the living room.  Leah came out to tattle inform me.  I went out to the living room to ask Maggie if she had sucked her fingers.  She gave me a dime right away and admitted it.  I was so proud of her for telling the truth and I wanted to reinforce the honesty, so I gave her the dime right back.

She hasn't sucked her fingers since!

I thought I explained to her that she'd get 10 dimes each morning, but she carried around the same ones the next morning (in a miniature plastic dog kennel obviously) and seemed happy with that.  I intended to do dimes for like 4 days and then switch to 4 quarters for 3 days, essentially only giving her 4 chances to keep any money.

I'm so happy with how this is going so far, and Maggie seems really proud of herself.

I don't think she's sucking them at night, but honestly, I don't really care.  

Our dentist said that Maggie sucking her fingers isn't messing up the alignment of her teeth, plus I can't do anything with the dimes while we're sleeping.  

But, so far so good!

My little sweetie is growing up!  

I'll let you know if this round of operation stop sucking your fingers sticks!