Our daughter, 3 3/4 years old, has some particular habits that surround her teddy bear. She sucks her thumb when she has her bear, but she also licks the bear's hand, and then places the bears hand on her face while sucking her thumb, or momentarily places it near her nose or cheek, or arm or leg. She doesn't bring her bear everywhere she goes (goes to daycare with her but stays in cubby most of the day) and she can be without her bear for hours, but asks for her bear when she watches TV or gets ready to go to sleep, and when she's upset. Trying to tell her to stop the licking and thumb sucking hasn't worked as it's a habit at this point, but how worried should we be? Is it time to do away with the bear? She doesn't suck her thumb when she doesn't have the bear but she has developed other habits such as licking her finger and then wiping her face for example. (Does this sometimes when she doesn't have her bear...) She's an all around very happy child. What are we to make of this? Not sure what approach to take but obviously this isn't a healthy or sanitary habit. I don't want to take her security item from her but maybe it's time? Or should we just work on all those other things without taking the bear? (If we take the bear, it would be a bear is lost situation- not that we punished her or took it from her). And how do we address those habits, whether we keep the bear or not?