What to do if your four-month-old baby eats his fingers while sleeping

Every young baby has his or her own behavioral habits. Some behavioral habits may also occur during sleep, such as some children like to use pacifiers. Some children like to suck their fingers before sleeping. These situations are caused by their parents. Therefore, we must slowly get rid of these habits, as they will affect the growth of children. It just takes some time. What should I do if my four-month-old baby eats his hands while sleeping?

What should I do if my child always sucks his fingers when sleeping?

First of all, parents should not worry too much that their child's thumb sucking will affect the development of the finger bones and teeth. After all, he is not sucking his thumb all the time, but only when he feels sleepy and wants to sleep. In this matter, parents' anxiety is often greater than the severity of the actual consequences. Especially for children under one year old, who are in the overlapping stage of oral stage and teething stage, they may like to suck their fingers during the day and at night. This is a very normal phenomenon. Parents only need to ensure that their children’s hands are clean and there is nothing that endangers their health and safety in their hands. They don’t need to worry about anything else.

Second, the key to solving the problem of sucking fingers before sleeping is to let children find substitutes for their fingers. For example, give your child a comfort blanket or a stuffed toy, and let him/her associate the comfort object with sleep. As long as he/she has the comfort blanket or stuffed toy, his/her emotions will become stable and he/she will gradually fall asleep.

Third, regardless of whether the comfort object works or not, parents should downplay the issue of their children sucking their thumbs. Don't nag or blame your children, and don't hit or scold them for sucking their thumbs. Because these are all negative reinforcements, they will only make the child's thumb sucking problem become more and more serious. If your child sucks his fingers and falls asleep quickly, don't bother him. If he hasn't fallen asleep for a long time after eating, you can gently take his hand out of his mouth and put the stuffed toy in his arms. You don't need to say anything, otherwise it will disturb the child's sleepiness or make him fall asleep with mental stress, which is another harm to the child's physical and mental health.

At what age do children start sucking their thumbs?

Children will begin to develop their own hands as new playmates at around three months old. Therefore, it is normal to put his new little friend into his mouth and suck it for fun at this stage, not to mention that this is his most readily available little friend and he cannot let it go. This little hand is the carrier that connects the child to the heart of exploring the world. If one deliberately tries to "cut off" this "hub", it will have a great impact on the child's psychology. Some children even regard sucking their fingers as a sign of attachment to the nipple. Sucking fingers is a reasonable need of infancy. It is harmless and requires adults to restrain their mindset to satisfy their needs.

When a child sucks his thumb, it marks the beginning of his brain development. It is the stage when the child begins to develop. Parents should not stop it, but should let him move freely. After the child is one year old, the habit of sucking his thumb will gradually decrease. Before the age of three, most children will naturally give up this habit.