Putting the fingers in the mouth is a simple matter for adults, but for babies, it means that his motor muscles and muscle control ability to cooperate with each other and have made great achievements. This requires the coordination of four reflex behaviors: bending the arm into a small arc, relaxing the muscles and extending the finger, searching and reaching the smallmouth, and starting to suck. This is a great “progress” for the baby. Parents should not be entangled with the baby’s love of eating hands but should be happy.
“Eating hands” is actually a healthy way for babies to comfort themselves. The famous psychologist Freud believes that eating is the best and most important way to get satisfaction in infancy. Babies from 2 to 3 months old are in a period of oral and lip pleasure. If their sucking needs are not met, their physical and mental development will be affected, resulting in irritable and depressed negative emotions. If parents can observe carefully, they will find that when the baby feels upset, irritable, or nervous, eating hands will calm the baby’s emotions. When some babies are in shallow sleep, they will use their fingers to seek self-comfort and fall asleep again.
●3~4 months old baby:
Parents can hold the baby’s little hand to touch the brightly colored toys hanging in front of them with loud sounds, and slowly the baby will take the initiative to reach it.
●5~6 months old baby:
Parents can hold the baby in front of the table and encourage the baby to take the initiative to reach for the toys on the table. When the baby has great skills in getting small hands, he will touch, explore, and learn about various novel objects and toys with greater interest. In this way, the baby can’t take care of it when he gets busy.
●Baby over 1-year-old:
If babies over 1-year-old still have a soft spot for eating hands, parents must pay attention to it. Actively look for the reasons, whether it is because the relationship with the baby is not “harmonious”, or because the baby is too restrictive and the requirements are somewhat strict, which makes the baby unhappy. The investigation found that children who lack parental care and spiritual comfort tend to develop the habit of sucking their hands. At this time, eating hands can comfort the baby and release tension and depression.
For a baby over one-year-old, if you still maintain the habit of “eating your hands”, it may be that your baby does not trust you enough. Experts say that if, like the baby in the case at the beginning of this article, you can’t “mingle” with other children in the playground, you will just stand aside and “eat your hands”, indicating that the baby may not trust “you” enough. A one-year-old baby should immediately ask the adults around him to pick him up when he feels scared, instead of simply “eat his hands” and stand aside. Under such circumstances, moms should “see” whether they are not sensitive enough to the baby, or if they cause bad emotions to the baby on some occasions.
Parents should spend as much time as possible playing games with their baby and give him more love. You can take him to play hands-on games: clapping hands, weaving ropes, hand-shadow games, clapping hands together, saying nursery rhymes, playing white rabbit scratching The shadow of the hand on the ear, the baby will never get tired of it.
Parents should understand and tolerate the baby’s hand-eating behavior, and should not force interference. When seeing older babies “eating their hands”, they should not repeatedly chant “how to eat their hands again”. This will not only not work but will strengthen this behavior, and even affect the baby’s future emotional and psychological development.
