Christina,

I am still sitting here laughing after reading your post on thumbsucking
as I sat here doing exactly what you said I would be doing; sticking my
thumb in my mouth and trying it out.
I was a thumb sucker as a child, and I remember stopping. I was about 8
years old and all of a sudden it just didn't feel right any more.I had no
pressure from my parents to stop, it was all on my own.

I have three children. My 2 oldest (now almost 15 yrs.  and 11 yrs old)
nursed untill 3 yrs. old and stopped on their own. My youngest
daughter,(now 8 yrs.) started sucking her thumb almost immediately after
birth. Being a LLLL,family bed, homebirth etc...person, surfice it to say
I nursed on demand , which was very often. But my daughter insisted on
sucking her thumb,too. I felt very guilty about this, and tried to nurse
her any time I saw her thumb in her mouth. Sometimes she wold take it ,
sometimes not. So I let up on myself. She recentlygave up thumbsucking on
her own. Iwould never say anything to her about stopping, I figured if
she stopped nursing on her own , when she was ready, she would stop thumb
sucking  when she was ready. And She did.

Funny nursing story: When my oldest daughter was a baby, she nursed
constantly. This sometimes posed a bit of a problem when we wanted to
drive somewhere. I would not let her out of her car seat when the car was
moving, so I "broke" my back bending over the car seat nursing her while
she was strapped in. Well, once , as we were driving, we were coming to a
toll booth, so I "dissengaged" her from my breast for a minute, not want
ing to embarrass the toll booth clerk,(we usually had exact change for
this reason), but I forgot to pull down my shirt and pick up my bra! What
a sight. I continued to nurse my daughter after I could stop myself from
laughing. (I didn't realize what I had done till we passed thogh the toll
booth.

Jayne Miller LLLL, Bronx, Ny