When the baby is 4 ~ 7 months old, in addition to the most basic needs such as full food and sleep, they need to get enough attention from their families. At the same time, babies also begin to pay more attention to the outside world and need the help of adults to explore the outside world.
Today, let’s talk about what changes have taken place in the physical function of babies aged 4-7 months and what special care parents need to give to these changes.
The pleasure of eating hands is infinite.
Babies of 4 ~ 7 months old, the fine movements of their hands develop rapidly, and they gradually master the skills of grasping and taking. At this stage, they like to explore external things through their hands and mouths. A very interesting phenomenon is also born from this-babies eat hands.
Many parents will have such confusion: [Should the baby stop eating his hands? ]
Ding Ma’s suggestion is: There are advantages and disadvantages for babies to eat their hands, and parents should still analyze the specific situation.
What are the benefits of baby eating hands?
The baby can take the initiative to put his hand into his mouth accurately, which depends on the coordination and cooperation of the sensory system and the motor system. For the baby, this is a happy progress.
Eating hands can make the baby’s oral cavity get sensory stimulation, promote its brain development, and make the baby smarter. At the same time, the baby can get self-comfort by eating hands, just like adults may also use shaking legs, pinching things in their hands and other ways to deal with anxiety, the baby eating hands is also a way to deal with emotions.
What are the possible disadvantages of baby eating hands?
(1) Hygiene problems: If the hands are not clean, bacteria will enter the oral cavity, increasing the risk of infection;
(2) Physiological problems: If the situation of eating hands is serious, it may lead to finger skin breakage and deformation, and may also affect tooth development for a long time.
(3) Social problems: If older children continue to eat their hands, it may not be conducive to their social development.
What should I do with my baby’s hands?
If the baby only eats hands occasionally and does not hurt himself, other children, kindergarten teachers, etc. can also accept the baby’s habit, parents do not need to stop it specially, because the more they stop the child, the more they will strengthen the child’s behavior of eating hands.
However, if the disadvantages brought by eating hands are obvious, parents need to find ways to change them together with their children. For example, pay attention to keeping the baby’s hands hygienic, replace them with pacifiers, and discuss a code word of not eating hands.
The golden period of getting into sleep habits
When the baby is about 6 months old, he can begin to cultivate the baby’s sleep habits, let him learn to sleep by himself, and can try to start weaning at night.
To cultivate good sleep habits, the following principles should be followed:
1. Regular activities help you fall asleep.
Help the baby to establish a relatively fixed sleep time. When the time comes to a fixed sleep time every day, you can take a series of fixed activities, such as taking a bath, changing diapers, drinking milk, humming or patting to coax the baby to some confusion, put him on the bed, continue humming or patting him, and let him fall asleep on his own.
Step 2 Provide a comfortable sleep environment
Ensure that the indoor temperature is appropriate, the air is ventilated, quiet and not noisy, and be careful not to cover or wear too much for children.
When the weather is relatively cold and the indoor temperature is relatively low, the baby within 1 year old can wear an average thickness of clothes more than adults, and the baby can wear clothes with reference to adults over 1 year old. When sleeping, you can wear pajamas for the baby, put on sleeping bags with appropriate thermal insulation coefficient, and do not need to sleep in cotton-padded clothes for the baby.
3. Help children distinguish day from night
Where you sleep, there should be a clear distinction between day and night light.
Ensure sufficient light during the day, and do not need to be completely shaded for naps, nor do they need to deliberately create a completely quiet environment. At night, turn off the lights in time or dim the lights to make the children feel that it is time to go to bed.
Step 4 Don’t get too excited before you go to bed
Don’t let the child play too excited or too tired or too tired before going to bed. On the contrary, it will be more difficult for the child to fall asleep. It is often difficult to appease him in the process of falling asleep. The more sleepy he is, the more crying he is, and the more difficult it is to coax him to sleep.
5. Don’t pick it up easily/feed the night milk.
If the child shows signs of [waking up] at night, you can first try to pat, touch and other comforting measures to avoid coaxing or feeding night milk as soon as the child wakes up.
If repeated several times, the child still cannot stop crying. Attention should be paid to whether the child has other uncomfortable places. If necessary, it can still be comforted by hugging or nursing. After all, night milk weaning is a long-term project and can allow the baby to repeat occasionally.
It’s time to start adding supplementary foods.
People often come to ask Ding Ma, saying that the baby can add supplementary foods in what. Some have heard that it usually takes 6 months to add supplementary foods, while others say that it can be added in 4 months… Then when can it be added in what?
The advice given by the Chinese Nutrition Society in < < Guidelines for Feeding Infants Aged 7-24 Months > > is that infants should add supplementary foods as soon as possible after reaching the age of 6 months.
The American Academy of Pediatrics also supports this proposal, but also points out that when the child’s tongue reflex is over, supplementary foods can be considered.
Tongue reflex is a reflex possessed by children and students. When adults put spoons or other objects containing food into children’s mouths, children will instinctively push their tongues outward to express their refusal. Most children will not have tongue reflex after 4 months, and they can start trying to add supplementary foods at this time.
< < Pediatrics > > emphasizes that the time of adding supplementary foods should be individualized. It mainly depends on the child’s development status in all aspects: generally, when the child weighs 6.5 ~ 7 kg, can head up stably, can control body movement, can hold and sit, and can eat with spoons (i.e. When the tongue-sticking reflex disappears), supplementary foods can be considered. At this time, the child is mostly 4 ~ 6 months old, which is also in the critical period of taste and chewing function development.
Therefore, the time for the baby to add supplementary foods should be personalized. When the baby is over 4 months old and shows that he has the ability to eat supplementary foods, he can consider starting to add supplementary foods.
However, it should be noted that it must not be earlier than the age of 4 months, because adding supplementary foods too early may not only affect breast-feeding, but also easily cause gastrointestinal discomfort due to immature digestive system of children, thus leading to feeding difficulties or increasing risks such as infection.
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