Nasty nail polish

Jordan still sucks his thumb a lot. He's five and a half, it's clearly messing with his teeth, and it's icky; we wish he would stop. Currently our efforts to help him quit are mostly in the form of constant reminders. Sometimes he goes along with us and works on not doing it, other times he resents our nagging him and hides. It's a whole bummer thing.

His dentist asked if we had tried a bitter nail polish. I had never heard of such a product, but lo and behold, there are many. One brand, Mavala Stop, is reputed to be extremely powerful. People write celebrating their 8 and 10 year olds who stopped overnight, the works. The reviews are pretty entertaining in a sicko kind of way: here's an excerpt from someone who used it to cure her own nail-biting problem:

"The taste is really horrible. It's like acetone (nail polish remover), bitter, rotten wood, and some sort of fish put together. It has a very chemical taste with a sweet undertone that makes for a horrible experience. The taste is also very durable and lingering. If you licked a nail painted with Mavala Stop, it would take a few minutes to get the taste out. The taste was so bad, in my opinion, that getting it off of my teeth, lips, and tongue when I slipped up stopped whatever I was doing or thinking about. It's very, very gross."

The enthusiastic parents have some cautions to go along with their hallelujahs:

- It tastes so horrific that if you touch your nail to your lips for any reason you practically run screaming out of the room, and you really can't get the taste out of your mouth. Kids can have trouble eating. A solution is to put a tiny dot of the stuff at the base of the nail so that the fingertips are still OK.
- A long-term comfort is being taken away suddenly and kids can have a hard time. Some can't sleep and are emotionally fragile. Parents advise being thoughtful about the timing.
- Parents who tried to use it on two and three year olds had mixed results. Some kids that age don't seem to get that it's the thumbsucking causing the horrific taste and are just miserable. Other younger kids don't mind the taste and/or just lick it off. And other young kids had miracle cures with no misery at all.
- Some kids have such a strong reaction to the taste that they puke all night, or in some cases for days. Parents say just power through.

Kind of a Clockwork Orange sounding thing when you put it that way. Maybe we should just all watch Thumbsucker and not worry about it.