No More Thumbs

My baby is being forced to grow up a little.  As most of you have probably heard by now, Alexa fell  a couple of months ago and hit her left maxillary tooth (yes, I totally just looked up the correct name for that tooth ;-) ) - basically, one of the front big ones on top.  She fell just right to hit only that one tooth (thankfully!), and at such an angle that it jammed the tooth back up into her little jaw.  It was not a pretty sight.  We checked her mouth right away and were convinced she had knocked it out and swallowed it (since we couldn't find it anywhere).  After keeping an eye out for it during diaper changes for several days, we just concluded we had missed it and it was gone.  To my amazement, several weeks later, I noticed a little white speck at the top of her gums!  At first, I figured it was a little chip that had somehow broken off and stuck in her gums, but after watching it a little longer, we realized that her entire tooth was moving around and slowing descending again!  Who knew that was even possible!
Since we had initially thought the tooth was gone, we didn't take her to a dentist.  but when it started making its reappearance, I thought it would be good to get it checked out.  Alexa wasn't the biggest fan of getting mouth x-rays taken (how many x-rays has her little body had to endure in her 21 months of life?!), but otherwise was a pretty good sport.  The dentist told us they would keep an eye on the little tooth and how it moves over the next 6 months, and will then decide whether it needs to be extracted or if it can stay until it falls out on its own.  However, she did suggest that we encourage Alexa to stop sucking her thumb, since the habit was likely putting pressure on the little tooth and thereby slowing/inhibiting its descent.  We didn't act on her advice immediately since she ended up getting sick, and then we knew we would be traveling.  But after we got back home and had another appointment, I figured it was time to bite the bullet and start breaking the habit. We put little bandaids on her thumbs and told her that she was all done putting them in her mouth.  She immediately understood -- I was amazed!  She never really tried to take the bandaids off, and the first couple of times when we told/reminded her not to suck her thumb, she cried with real sorrow.  Not defiantly or angrily, but with true sadness that that comfort was gone and no longer available to her.  After that, Alexa was an absolute star!  It took only about three days of helping her fall asleep at night and nap times until she figured out how to self-soothe again.  I was very relieved that we didn't have to take away her favorite little "he-se" (her Haeschen, or bunny), which she is very attached to and always uses to cuddle herself to sleep.  The one downside is that she has started having more night wakings, when she cries out and has trouble falling back to sleep sometimes without some pats on the back or getting water, but with time I'm sure she'll be back to her old sleeping self.  :-)  I couldn't have been more proud of her!!  Here are some pictures...

The night of the accident; the last picture I took of her with both of her little teeth in place.

The next day.  Poor baby. :( :(  (But you can tell, she was already over it, though her head did hurt for a day from the impact of the fall.)

Wow!  There's a tooth up in there!!  Starting to come back down, but you can see it's indented and, according to the dentist, fractured.

The process of thumb-weaning has begun.  Being tough and making it through life with bandaids on her little thumbs.

Not sure if this picture shows it well, but you can tell the tooth has come down significantly.

"See my band-aid?" BIG, BRAVE GIRL!!