During my previous “week” with the children, my youngest informed me that Sarah peeks in the windows and watches when she sleeps to see if she is sucking her thumb. I had to reassure her that Sarah can not sneek around mommy’s home and that Princess A should rest and relax.
This week home with me, she told my mother and my best friend (when they came to visit) the same thing, Sarah watches when Princess A sleeps to see if she is sucking her thumb. She claimed Sarah sneaks around the windows to see if she is sucking her thumb at mommy’s home.
This is disturbing in itself because some how my youngest child is worried about when she sleeps whether someone is sneaking around peeking in a window just to see if she is sucking her thumb tells me there is some emotional and phycological fears around the thumb sucking while sleeping. Let’s not even get started on how this is mental abuse of a child to make a child think such fears.
I tried to reassure her that at mommy’s house she is safe and no one will ever sneak around mommy’s house. It’s not working.
Now she is grinding her teeth when she sleeps.
She is terrified to sleep alone and must sleep with me in my room. During the night she reaches out to put a hand or a foot on me to reassure herself I am still there.
Now you might ask how do I know she is grinding her teeth and reaching for me. Well I am a super light sleeper and really prefer sleeping alone due to the fact that every little movement wakes me. My now five year old child is scared to sleep alone. Every time she moves to touch me, it wakes me. I have woken several times this week to hear a weird sound that I had trouble figuring out what it was. Only to finally realize, it’s my child grinding her teeth.
So I looked up the research and medical information on teeth grinding. It can be caused by missing teeth or misaligned teeth. However it can also be caused by stress and anxiety.
It is bad on the teeth in that it wears them down, but it also causes headaches which this week Princess A has complained about her head hurting.
I am angry because I feel helpless. The arrogant ex-husband is allowing his homewrecker to scare our child. His attitude is that I have no say in what happens at HIS house. I am starting to think maybe our child should not be at his house if he is going to participate in causing Princess A emotional and phycological stress and anxiety over THUMBSUCKING!
I would have preferred the thumb-sucking over the grinding teeth issue which can cause long term and lasting damage to her teeth just as much if not more than the thumb-sucking. This leads to long term damage in the jaw bone which can lead to adult TMJ.
Just like with the potty training, she would have eventually been ready to stop sucking her thumb, but obviously it is not the time to force the issue.
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