Why does the baby like to eat hands?
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Baby eating hands belongs to human primitive reflex.
The appearance of sucking reflex from the age of 8 months can help the child to suck breast milk smoothly after birth. However, this is only an instinctive behavior, and the child does not realize that he is eating his hand or why he wants to eat his hand.
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Eating hands is also the exploration demand for growth.
For babies aged 4-7 months, the fine movements of their hands develop rapidly. At this stage, they like to explore external things through their hands and mouths. Eating hands can stimulate the baby’s oral cavity, promote its brain development and make the baby smarter.
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Eating hands is also an act of self-protection.
Eating hands is an important means for children to comfort themselves and effectively relieve pressure before they can speak, which can prevent psychological trauma.
Although some children do not eat hands, they like to eat bottles, comfort pacifiers and bite quilts, which is the same reason. There are also some children who subconsciously stimulate themselves because of boredom and eating hands.
Babies eat their hands for a long time, which really affects their facial features.
Long-term [hand eating] will affect the normal development of baby’s teeth and bones, but it depends on age.
Baby about 1 year old began to erupt upper and lower incisors, under normal circumstances, upper and lower teeth can be contacted when the mouth is closed. If the baby has the habit of eating hands, put fingers often between the incisors, over time will let the teeth protrude, and the upper and lower teeth cannot bite.
If the habit continues until the age of 5-6, the baby’s jaw bone development and normal occlusion will be permanently adversely affected.
How to help your baby quit eating hands?
- Before the age of 2: Eat if you want. This is the baby’s mouth desire period. Eat if you want ~ but pay attention to hand hygiene! 2-4 years old: gradually guide and intervene, some children will learn other means of self-comfort between 2-4 years old, use language, food or toys to relieve pressure, and the behavior of eating hands will disappear.
How to divert children’s attention
- When he is bored and starts to eat his hand and hands over a toy he likes, the child will naturally stretch out his hand and take it, or propose to dance together, which will also make the eating hand stop naturally. In occasions where children need to wait for a long time, such as driving for an outing, you can prepare decompression toys full of buttons to prevent eating hands due to boredom. Avoid specific events that cause hand eating: if children are often timid and afraid, install night lights and stop educating children in the way of “scaring” to comfort children who are afraid of making mistakes [it doesn’t matter, I also made mistakes when I first learned, just practice more]; If the child is used to eating his hands to sleep, try to read by holding his mother’s hand and holding a plush bear instead.