To not understand the be thought process of babies'

[Throughautomaticdoors]

I know that they learn by putting stuff in their mouths but why do they learn like this? It seems like an evolutionary fail to me.

Crawling along, spy a shoe / piece of fluff / the cat and straight in the mouth. Surely this insane thought process is a) germy and b) has the potential to result in choking?

Dd is ten months and I now spend half of my life taking stuff out of her mouth. It just seems a design flaw to me. Why don't they just learn by holding and looking at stuff?!
Also surely when it's been in your mouth once (cat's tail) you don't need to try it again?

[Batteriesallgone]

Personally I think it's lovely when I see a crying baby being held. The attitude of put them down and leave them to it has always seemed so cold to me.

I guess because everyone I know who has said 'ooh when they whinge I put them down for a bit and they go to sleep' has actually, when I've been with them and seen it, just closed the door / pulled up the pram hood on a screaming baby and waited it out. So I'm skeptical of how many babies really just need to be left to it. I know they exist but to see lots of mothers who need to try that tactic? Nah.

[a8mint]

Well of course putting a baby down and walking away is not the cure all for all or even most crying babies. But I have noticed lots of first tume mothers of new babies do not recognise that very distinctive cry of a baby that just wants to sleep and jumps to pick them up at the first murmur.I am not advocating leaving a new born crying for more than a minute or so unless their cries are slowing down.

[lozengeoflove]

Am posting this lying next to a sleeping baby who will only fall asleep if attached to a boob, or in a sling. I would love to be able to put him down and walk away to do some relaxing dusting, but he has this inbuilt alarm system which ensures this is never attempted.

[lozengeoflove]

batteries your post cheered me right up. Am now overjoyed at providing my baby and toddler with an amazing learning opportunity that is our hoovered, but filthy carpet and dusty surfaces.
It's not that I'm a slovenly dust cloth dodger, it's just that I'm letting their palette and immune system get used the germs you see.

[Bobafatt]

Also snorting at the thought of walking off from tired shrieking Dbaby and thinking he would be asleep in a few minutes. I tried this once.
He spent considerable time shrieking the equivalent of "Get your arse back here. I haven't finished telling you how TIRED I AAAAMMMMM!"

[MommaGee]

Also my son is very good at determining the difference between food and not food. Only the latter shall enter his mouth!! Will chew ANYTHING so longs it isn't food

[MommaGee]

Still giggling rudely at things feel bigger in the mouth...

[welshgirlwannabe]

A8mint - my eldest is nearly 15. I'm not as young and inexperienced as my babies poor sleep habits might lead you to believe

Some babies haven't read the 'leave them crying and walk away ' book, and don't know that it ends with them sleeping soundly after 10 minutes of fussing.

Similarly, some babies don't know that they ought to be sleeping through by now (looking at you ds2!). My years of parenting experience have taught me that they all get there in the end though!

[GoofyTheHero]

a8mint I have two children. One would moan herself to sleep if put down, one would scream and scream and scream until she vomited. All babies are different, who would have thought it?
Maybe try being less sanctimonious next time.

[Batteriesallgone]

Depends how long you're willing to let it scream for I guess.

I'd rather me get a little stressed and tired than leave my baby crying. Just could never do it.

[SamhainSoubriquet]

Just put the baby down and it will sleep?

Hahahahaha!!!

You obviously had an easy baby

[MauiWest]

just put him down and walk away.after a few minutes crying he will be fast asleep.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

[DrunkenUnicorn]

A8mint no need to be so bloody sanctimonious.

I've had three dc. Walking away from overstimulated ds1 would have worked. No bloody way with the other two. What may have worked with your dc won't for everyone so pipe down

[meladeso]

a8mint how snippy and unpleasant. What's the need?!

How about -

"you could be keeping him awake by overstimulating him. Have you tried putting him down and walking away? After a few minutes crying you might actually find he goes to sleep.

I sometimes think mums spend a lot of time doing what you describe not realising they might be better off letting the baby try to settle themself."

Or similar?

[Batteriesallgone]

Germy is good. The immune system needs exposure to develop. It's really important that babies get the opportunity to put dirty stuff in their mouths. From what I remember when I studied it, the immune system is most open to 'learning' when young, and gradually gets less able to cope with new kinds of pathogens as you age.

I think it's to do with the Hygiene Hypothesis.

[a8mint]

ewelsh- I think you are keeping him awake by over stimulating him . just put him down and walk away.after a few minutes crying he will be fast asleep.I want to shout this sometimes when I see new inexperienced mothers faffing about with a clearly tired baby y that just wants to be put down.

[BertieBotts]

I think it's a bit of a red herring to assume that "early man/woman" wouldn't have had so many things lying around, because there are lots of things which occur in nature which most parents would be alarmed about their baby eating - stones, insects, sticks, leaves, pieces of food, fruit stones, animal faeces, to name a few.

And I'm sure they had plenty to do to survive that we largely don't need to do today.

[WiddlinDiddlin]

I would think it makes little sense now because now, we put babies down on the floor and have to do other things, we have so much STUFF as well...

Early man, er, woman, would not have put the baby down for very long or very often, and when she did it would be in a pretty limited environment, and she had buggerall else to do but mind the baby.

In my experience all baby mammals explore with their mouths though, puppies mouth and lick and suckle at stuff and then progress to chewing, foals will mouth and play with anything they can find when tiny and start to bite pretty early on as well - not had much experience with other baby animals, kittens are the same though...

At some point, being willing to put things in our mouths and explore them wll have been an evolutionary advantage... if we werent' we would struggle to eat ...

Even if something stops being an evolutionary advantage, it doesn't go away unless it becomes the opposite, and although we have increased the amount of time small children spend not being carried, and we've expanded the environment and the stuff they explore, we also know more about not letting them choke or poison themselves ... so it isn't a trait thats selected against.

[BertieBotts]

If you pretend to fall asleep convincingly next to a tired baby they will often copy you and fall asleep themselves. It's magic! Worked on my DS anyway, no idea if it works for all babies. I do think they get a bit overstimulated. We'd probably have been holding them more constantly in the past and they'd sleep when they felt like it rather than holding on and staying awake.

I'm not convinced as many things as we think are choking hazards for babies with the obvious exception of things like plastic bags and balloons. If you look at how they act when BLW, if they get something too big in their mouth they'll often gag and spit it out. They don't develop the ability to pick up completely random things and put them into their mouths until they can sit up and move around by themselves - when they're on their backs they can only have what you give them. And you can see when BLW that they can't physically pick up small, chokable objects like peas until they develop pincer grip which comes later. Obviously that's not a reason to leave them unattended or ignore choking hazards, but I think maybe we worry a bit unnecessarily.

YY to their mouths and tongues being much more sensitive than their eyes or hands at that age. You've got to understand 3D shapes quite intimately before you can understand innately what something is just by looking at it. Oral exploration seems like an eminently sensible way of doing that.

It's hilarious to me when they get to the point of controlling their arms just enough to be able to get things to their mouths because it's like they kind of go "OH! That's what those flappy scratchy things are for, that makes sense!"

[aurynne]

Taking things to their mouths at that age implies no "thought process" whatsoever, it is purely instinctive.

[Tigerstar123]

Welshgirl how bizarre, my friend and I said exactly the same only the other day. I'm tired, I go to sleep. Baby tired, I'll fight it. Why?? Just why? Major design flaw me thinks!

[StewardsEnquiry]

Also they are learning how to feed themselves at that point so need to get good at putting food in their mouths.

[StrawberryQuik]

Err conking out, DS isn't a baby genius who can use a BBQ!

[StrawberryQuik]

I think that's why toddlers get fussy whereas before they'll eat everything...a baby is always with a parent so anything that goes in their mouth is 'safe' a toddler starts to begin to explore out of the cave where the poisonous red berries are...

YY welshgirl DS flaps about like a fish and wails in my arms on a regular basis before cooking out.

I'd also like it if they magically understood to lie still and not immediately flip over and try to escape nappy changes.

[HmmHaa]

Yes, welshgirl, I am thinking the same: THIS is the design flaw we are focusing on...? 😂