Helping Hands Occupational Therapy

One critical milestone in learning how to eat occurs very early on in life, when babies place ALL THE THINGS in their mouth. The process of mouthing helps babies to develop a sensory map of their mouth - in other words, it helps them to:⠀
1) know where the lips, tongue, cheeks and jaws are⠀
2) prepares them for chewing and swallowing skills ⠀
3) helps to refine their tactile/touch system in their mouth so that they can tolerate and manipulate and chew a greater variety of textures when they begin eating.⠀
4) There is also research that shows mouthing harder objects helps with tooth erruption⠀
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Many babies miss this critical developmental milestone because their parents don't know the benefits of mouthing for feeding skills and how it sets babies up for a successful eating experience.⠀
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1) Do you or did you have a hard time letting your baby chew on everything? (obviously you have to be very careful to make sure the item they're mouthing is not a choking hazard)⠀
2) Just for fun, whats one of the wildest things you found in your babies mouth😱?⠀
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Tag a mama who might need this!