One of the fascinating periods in childhood is the first year of a child. Parents mention about the habit of their children to mouth their hands, and objects with some concern.
The second among the three photographs of this child gives us a clue about its origin. This is an automatic visual-oro-facial reflex, which is activated, when any child sights an object or when the hands are in the midline, in the visual field of the child. This is a reflex which lasts for about three to four months from the age of three months of an infant. It is likely that some babies will persist with hand mouthing even up to one year and beyond, which may be more incidental than habitual.
There are three aspects which parents ought to remember. As soon a child is able to play with toys, the mouthing of the hands would decline, to be replaced by mouthing of toys. As children begin to move about and enter into a social and interactive process, even this would decline. It is when a child is unoccupied or about to fall asleep, an infant may mouth the hands.
The thumb sucking is different from this, where most infants simulate the pleasure of sucking from the mother's nipple by thumb sucking. There is a pacifying or soothing effect. This occurs when the child feels unsettled or when there are too many changes in the environment. This again is a transient phase, although parents feel anxious about it when children mouth the thumb at 5 years. This when it occurs, is more to do with a developed habit, which would fade away when another activity is offered to replace it at the occasions when it would normally occur. If it occurs at bedtime, offering a cuddly toy or being with the child at bed time or reading a story, etc. can help immensely.
It is important not to fight with the cild if the child is already used to suck the thumb habitually. It may be necessary to talk about this to someone who has more skills to help to find a way forward. Most children leave it behind when a more interesting engagement is offered consistently. It is related to a state of anxiety, separational stress or any form of deprivation only occasionally. When parents feel pre-occupied with it, it reveals the anxiety of parents. Being anxious is no way to deal with it. Instead parents need all the support to view it as yet another passing developmental phase during infancy.
One mother told me that every time she saw her one year old girl suck her thumb, she would go back to her childhood, to think of all the punishments she received from her parents to stop her from sucking the thumb. It is a suffering parent one should think of, while parents talk about thumb sucking of their child.
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
This is very informative ! Thank you.
ReplyDelete