Mr. Boy went to bed irritable because of the extract of cactus painted on the fingernails of his two sucking fingers. Nibble No More is the name of the stuff provided by his dentist this afternoon for the nail painting. All in the interest of ending his finger sucking to straightenhis bite before his permanent teeth start coming in. The stuff–which tastes unpleasantly sour–is billed as a solution to nail biting. I don’t doubt it. It’s sad, in a way, because he’s leaving one more vestige of babyhood behind. Will this also be the end of Miss El? He usually holds her while sucking his fingers. I didn’t see him with her once all afternoon. Passages.
UPDATE In the middle of the night we hear a cry from Mr. B.’s bedroom followed by: "I feel like I’m going to throw up." His fingers had gravitated to his mouth in his sleep.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 
Isn’t modern medicine wonderful. Years ago they would put a towel with pepper on it tied to your finger. Whatever, we all turn out to be wonderful.
I never heard that, about a towel tied to your finger. Doesn’t sound like fun. Three days into this, Mr. B. is doing well. His irritation is subsiding.
I distinctly remember experiments with iodine solution and some other bitter stuff – all with our daughter. Didn’t help, but after a while the finger sucking just went away.
We were going to wait, to let the habit disappear on its own, probably from peer-pressure, as much as anything else. But the dentist said his permanent teeth are coming in and they’d likely be crooked and hard to reshape unless the finger-sucking stopped as soon as possible.