Thumb sucking

My baby is 6 days old and we are exclusively breastfeeding. She's got a shallow latch that's a bit ouch to get her on but once she's sucking it's fine. However she's quite the thumb sucker always got her fingers/thumb in her mouth. Should I be putting breast in her face when she does or is she okay thumb sucking? She lets you know when she's hungry so think she's just self soothing with the thumb? Things I've seen say no dummy or bottle before 6 weeks so we avoiding them. Pic of my little lady Thanks

Show your support

My boy is a thumb sucker and has been since birth. My girl stopped around 2 months. They are 15m now and still bf 🙂

As my personal opinion I think it's self soothing but I would not let my baby suck their thumb so much as I did when I was a baby/kid and nobody had me break the habit so I grew up with buck teeth because of it & was teased a lot in school. I didn't let my son suck his thumb or give him a binky and he has perfectly straight teeth. My niece on the other hand sucked her thumb an used a binky an she now has buck teeth like I did.

@Gabrielle I did think that could be a thing. The breastfeeding support just said she needs to learn to feed and the best thing for sore nipples is your milk but they aren't sore. It's only when she attaches once she's got going it doesn't hurt

We use one and she’s not confused at all. We do use bottles as well. She definitely prefers the boob tho. Haha we give her one after. A feeding when it’s time for her to sleep because she just likes sucking and to help her soothe herself.

You can continue to let her have her thumb if you want. You can also introduce a pacifier. It’s really up to you. But if her latch hurts then I’d get her evaluated for a tongue and Lip tie.

@Danni thank you. She's tiny compared to my first. She looks like a doll

@Kelly amazing thank you. I didn't think thumb would be too much issue but so paranoid about our breastfeeding journey being cut short again

@Katie that makes sense. I've seen loads say it can mean you miss their cues for milk

She’s so freaking cute aghhh 🥰

Totally fine! Leave her go

My daughter is EBF and I gave her a dummy at about a week old and it was fine! Everything I read said that as long as you’re not using it instead of having milk to make her go longer between feeds for example then it should avoid nipple confusion

@Melissa yeah she was going every 1.5-2 hours for about 20 mins but she's started latching every hour for about 10-20 mins. I've been trying to encourage latching and milk lots of skin to skin so she can literally just get it haha. I only managed 3 months with my first and really want to feed longer this time round so paranoid about things impacting feeding

‌

‌
‌

‌

‌
‌

‌

‌
‌

‌

‌
‌

‌

‌
‌

‌

‌
‌