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Why Kids Suck Their Thumbs | The Hidden Airway Connection

27 Aug 2025 · 1 min

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1:20

Hallie Bulkin (speaker) explains that persistent thumb sucking in children often reflects underlying oral/airway problems rather than a mere habit. Key causes mentioned include poor tongue posture, limited oral space, tongue-tie, and other oral dysfunctions that lead the body to self-soothe via thumb sucking. Bulkin flags thumb sucking beyond age 2–3 as concerning and links it to potential sleep-disordered breathing, sensory dysregulation, and muscle imbalance. She recommends clinicians/parents ask: (1) why the child needs it, (2) what function it serves for body/brain, and (3) whether airway obstruction or reduced airflow/oral dysfunction is present.

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But when the tongue is not up there in the roof of the mouth for whatever reason, maybe there's not enough space, maybe there's a tongue tie, maybe there's some other oral dysfunction going on. Whatever the case may be, we have our bodies just find ways to self regulate and in goes the thumb for a lot of kids. Right. And this happens due to poor airway or tongue posturing like I was mentioning. Right. So this is a major red flag for sleep disorder, breathing, sensory dysregulation, or even muscle imbalance. Right. So if a child is dependent on thumb sucking, especially beyond like the younger years, like beyond age 2 or 3, which honestly, we should never need to suck our thumb. But this is often the times beyond two to three when we tend to get parents who are like, hey, how do we break this habit? And oh, this is a problem. Like how do we, how do we help the child get thumb out of the mouth? Right. We need to ask a few questions. Number one, why, why do they need to do this? Number two, what is it doing for their body or brain or both? And number three, could this be a sign of airway obstruction? The airway is blocked. The airway air is not flowing the way that it should. Maybe it's not completely obstructed, but there's reduced airflow or, and, or oral dysfunction, like what's going on in the mouth. Right. So I really want you to focus on those questions.