Reasons why two-year-old babies suck their fingers

Most of the time when babies learn to recognize and explore, they start with their own bodies. Children start to have the habit of sucking their fingers when they are very young. In fact, there is nothing wrong with sucking fingers for babies. As the child grows and develops, this is a necessary stage and it will recover after a period of time. However, when the baby is two years old, he still has the habit of sucking his fingers. What should we do in this case?

Reasons why babies suck their fingers

When the baby is 2 to 3 months old, parents will find that they begin to like sucking their fingers. No matter how they stop them, they will still eat them, and they enjoy them very much. So, what is the reason why babies suck their fingers?

According to experts, sucking fingers has different meanings for babies before 6 months and after 6 months.

For babies under 6 months old, sucking fingers is entirely for satisfying the need to suck, so it is particularly obvious when they are hungry. When the baby is 3 to 4 months old, as the sucking reflex gradually disappears, the baby's desire to suck begins to gradually weaken; when the baby is 6 to 7 months old, the phenomenon of sucking fingers will generally disappear naturally.

If the baby continues to suck his fingers after 6 months, it is no longer to satisfy the need for sucking, but a manifestation of the need for masturbation. Babies after 6 months are more emotionally fragile. They are afraid of leaving their parents and familiar people around them, and are particularly attached to their relatives. At this time, they have their own initial demands for independence. Therefore, they often use sucking their fingers to comfort themselves when they are tired, nervous, depressed, and separated from their closest people.

Now that you understand why your baby sucks his fingers, you need to take the right approach to deal with this problem. Babies under 6 months old suck their fingers just to satisfy their sucking needs, and this habit will usually disappear naturally at 6 to 7 months, so there is no need to pay too much attention to this issue. Parents can try to breastfeed their babies, or let their babies suck for a while longer during feeding to meet their sucking needs. For babies after 6 months old, sucking their fingers is a manifestation of masturbation. Parents should find ways to ease the baby's nervousness. They can take the baby for walks outdoors more often, let him/her come into contact with new things, and use his/her energy to explore things of interest in the outside world. In this way, the baby's habit of sucking his/her fingers will gradually disappear.