He finally found his thumb...

...with consistency!

This has made our lives a lot easier, especially when putting him down to sleep. He can't seem to figure out how to keep a pacifier in his mouth, so our go-to when he needs to suck for comfort has unfortunately been our own fingers. When you've got a baby that's overtired and needs to suck to be soothed, bending over his crib with your finger in his mouth for 5 minutes (or longer!) does not a happy Mommy or Daddy make.

He hasn't been able to give up the sucking on our fingers entirely quite yet. When he's really worked up he doesn't seem to think to find his own thumb. But if we can get him to calm down a little (maybe 20 seconds on our finger) he'll usually find his thumb and quiet himself the rest of the way. It's also been a great sign that he's starting to get tired, which is helpful because he seems to have a pretty small window between "I'm not tired enough to nap so I'll throw a fit if you try to put me in my crib" and "I'm too tired now and I'll throw a fit when you put me in my crib".

As you can see from the picture, his way of sucking his thumb is a little funny, with his palm pointed up and all of his fingers around the side of his face, but at least he manages not to poke his eyes, which he had done when he was trying to suck his thumb a couple of months ago. He also does tend to put his other arm up near his face, especially when he's in the crib trying to fall asleep. Sometimes the other arm even goes over his eyes.

Oh, and it's always the left thumb. Another indication he's going to be a lefty?