Here’s what The Parenting Doctor, Dr. Ann Corwin, has to say about Paficifer, fingers, thumbs and blankets:

Before children are born they suck. This natural and necessary ability to suck is used for nutrition and non-nutritive comfort.

Parents would never think of taking nutrition away from their kids. Much less thinking it is OK to make them feel bad without supporting them.
So why does the general public believe that by a certain age, usually by 3 years, a child should give up their comfort objects, like pacifiers, fingers, thumbs and blankets?

The really crazy thing about this practice of taking away comfort from kids is that adults don’t even give up comfort by certain chronological ages.
If you told a 25 year old to stop jogging after work or told a 40 year old to stop reading romance novels or a 50 year old to stop working on their picture albums in their spare time, they would call you crazy and say no way.

Now if an adult jogged, read and worked on picture albums all day instead of supporting their family or working to pay their bills, then that would be a problem.

My point is just teach the time and place for your kids to comfort themselves instead of taking comfort away entirely. Because these objects that kids cling to have nothing to do with the object itself, like a pacifier, but it is what it represents.

Fingers, pacifiers, thumbs and loveys remind kids of the loving, secure feelings they have for their parents.