Bizarrely, my daughter stopped overnight when the dentist told her it could cause problems with her teeth. I admired her self control!

A dummy is better so if he/she is still young your probably better off

My son was playing with some tongs and cut his thumb. Stopped him sucking it

Swap it with something preferred like a dummy (if its preferred) depends on the age of the child too.

When my daughter started sucking her thumb we swapped her onto a dummy. Eventually she would only take the dummy. My son was another story, we tried and tried to swap him onto a dummy but he wouldn’t take it. It drove us crazy. He continued to suck his thumb until he was 6yrs old, then we used a fabric thumb sleeve to stop him. Thumb sucking might look cute when they are tiny babies but it is a really hard habit to break, at least you can throw away a dummy!

My baby sucked his thumb in utero (very clearly on ultrasound) so it was always going to be difficult to stop him after he was born. Some babies just need to suck. The baby nurse recommended that we give him a dummy to get him used to sucking that and then later (when he no longer puts his thumbs or fingers in his mouth) wean him off the dummy because it is easier to take a dummy off them than their thumbs or fingers. At the moment he is 19 months and now only uses his dummy at night or in the car. We hope to have him weaned off it by 2yo.