Does the baby need to be corrected for sucking his fingers? The harm of sucking fingers

Babies love to suck their fingers from birth, which is a way for them to comfort and self-regulate. However, there are many bacteria on their hands, and many parents are worried about their children's health. Is it good or bad for babies to suck their fingers?

1. It can help children calm down

Babies suck their fingers. To a certain extent, the act of sucking can help children calm down and help them deal with various new situations that may make them nervous. This is one of the natural ways for humans to comfort themselves or make themselves happy.

Babies aged 2 to 3 months are in the oral pleasure period. If their sucking needs are not met, it will affect their physical and mental development. When they grow up, they are likely to develop bad habits such as nail biting and smoking, and may even develop a bad temper, psychological anxiety, and lack of trust in others.

Moreover, if babies are forced to stop sucking their thumbs during this period, it will cause them to develop a rebellious mentality or psychological trauma. According to foreign studies, if babies are forced to stop sucking their thumbs during this period and their sensitive period of oral sex is not properly treated, they will be more likely to develop an aggressive personality when they grow up. Boys are more likely to have violent tendencies, while girls are more likely to gossip and make sarcastic remarks.

Babies sucking their fingers will damage the shape of their teeth

2. Thumb sucking is a signal of the baby's intellectual development

Babies first learn about the world through their mouths.

At first, the hand is just an external thing to the baby whose brain is not fully developed, not an organ of his body. Therefore, the baby often uses his mouth to eat his hand, chew toys, and bite the corner of clothes. From sucking the whole hand at first to sucking a finger skillfully, this shows that the child's brain's ability to control its own actions has greatly improved, which can promote the coordination of the brain, hands and eyes.

3. When the baby reaches a certain age, the behavior of sucking fingers needs to be corrected

Parents don't need to worry if babies under 2 years old suck their fingers, but if babies still suck their fingers when they are 3-4 years old, it is a regressive behavior. When babies are anxious and nervous, they will regress to infancy and use sucking to satisfy their oral desires to reduce their inner worries. There are often many potential reasons behind this: for example, it may be that the baby lacks trace elements in the body, such as zinc and iron; the baby's psychological problems are that the child is psychologically unhealthy, manifested as depression, anxiety, compulsion, rebellion, etc.

1. Damage to fingers

When babies suck their fingers, their fingers are soaked in saliva for a long time, and the skin becomes tender and fragile, and more easily broken by sucking. The possibility of infection increases, and the fingers become swollen and red. The long-term "sucking-breakage" cycle will also cause rough calluses to form on the skin of the fingers. Strong sucking may also cause deformation of the finger bones, causing the finger joints to bend and unable to straighten.

2. Bacterial infection

When babies suck their fingers, they may accidentally swallow the bacteria on their hands into their stomachs, which may cause diarrhea at the mildest and some infectious diseases at the worst. Even if they wash their hands at home before eating, the fingers that are sucked can easily become infected, and the bacteria can be brought into the mouth at the same time, causing other diseases, such as colds or gastroenteritis.

3. Damage to Teeth

When babies reach a certain age, sucking their fingers will damage the shape of their teeth.

If the permanent teeth grow during the process of sucking the finger, the force applied when sucking the finger will cause the teeth to grow in the wrong direction, which will affect the arrangement and bite of the teeth and easily cause oral problems. For example, due to the force of sucking, the upper teeth will be pushed from the inside to the outside through the fingers, causing the front teeth to bulge outward, or the maxillary dental arch to change from the normal "U" shape to a "V" shape. This deformation of the tooth arrangement will cause certain difficulties in biting and chewing, and at the same time, it will increase the risk of the upper teeth being hit.

Parents communicating more with their babies can alleviate the phenomenon of sucking their fingers

4. Affects pronunciation and speaking

If the behavior of sucking fingers is too serious, it will further affect the baby's pronunciation and speech. If the teeth are not arranged neatly, the speech will leak or the pronunciation will be unclear, resulting in unclear speech. When the upper and lower front teeth cannot bite normally, the child will not be able to accurately pronounce some syllables. For example, "zi", "si", "shi", "chi", "po", "bo", etc. Inaccurate pronunciation will cause unclear speech, which will cause psychological damage to the child in the future.

1. When breastfeeding your baby, you should not only provide nutrition to your baby, but also provide enough care and warmth. Breastfeeding is undoubtedly the best choice.

2. If it is artificial feeding, the size of the nipple opening should be moderate, not too large, so as to effectively control the flow rate of milk and allow the baby enough time to satisfy the sucking needs.

3. When breastfeeding, the mother should keep calm and not be anxious or irritable so as not to cause stress to the baby.

4. After the baby wakes up, do not leave him alone in bed for too long, so as to prevent the baby from feeling bored and putting his hands in his mouth, thus developing the habit of sucking his fingers.

5. If your baby has shown a tendency to suck his fingers, take his fingers out of his mouth as quickly as possible and use toys or other things to attract his attention.

6. Spend more time with your baby. Use your free time to talk to him, sing nursery rhymes, play with building blocks or read books, etc., so that your baby will forget to suck his fingers during the game activities.

7. When the baby just starts to show the tendency to suck his fingers, it is a feasible measure to extend the sleeves to cover the fingers.

Babies first learn about the world through their mouths, and hands are just an external thing to babies whose brains are not fully developed, not an organ of their own body. Therefore, babies often use their mouths to eat their hands, chew toys, and bite the corners of clothes. From sucking the whole hand at the beginning to sucking a finger skillfully, this shows that the child's brain's ability to control its own actions has greatly improved, which can promote the coordination of the brain, hands and eyes.

For babies aged 2 to 3 months, sucking their fingers indicates that their psychological development has entered a new stage - the differentiation of finger functions and the initial stage of hand-eye coordination. It is a signal of intellectual development. Parents should be happy for them! The famous psychologist Freud called the first year after the birth of a baby the "oral period", which is the first basic stage of personality development. Sucking fingers is the best and most important way to get satisfaction in infancy. Babies aged 2 to 3 months are in the oral pleasure period. If the need for sucking is not met, it will affect their physical and mental development. When they grow up, they are likely to develop bad habits such as biting nails and smoking, and even prone to bad temper, psychological anxiety, lack of trust in people, etc.

If parents observe carefully, they will find that when babies feel uneasy, irritable, or nervous, sucking their fingers will calm them down. Some babies will suck their fingers to comfort themselves and fall asleep again when they are in a light sleep state. In short, sucking fingers is a psychological need and behavior in the growth process of babies, and it is a healthy way for babies to comfort themselves. Under normal development, babies will not develop the habit of sucking their fingers, and parents do not need to worry or try to stop it.