show them sucking on their hands as early as three months before their
due date.) It was easy for your fetus to suck her fingers, because the soft
walls of your womb kept her hands conveniently
right in front of her
mouth. Likewise, once she reaches four months of age and has enough
muscle control to park her thumb in her mouth anytime she wants, it
will again become a breeze for her to suck her fingers.
However, during your baby’s fourth trimester she’ll spend very little
time sucking her fingers. It’s not that she doesn’t want to—she’d
probably slurp on them twenty-four hours a day if she could. But for a
newborn, getting a finger into the mouth and
keeping it there is almost a
Herculean feat. Even when your baby concentrates hard, drooling in
anticipation of her success, her poor coordination usually causes her
hands
to fly right by their target, like cookies narrowly missing a hungry
toddler’s mouth!
Why is sucking such a sweet experience for babies? What does it do
that gives them so much pleasure?
Sucking makes babies feel extraordinarily good for two reasons:
1.
It satisfies their hunger—of course. Who doesn’t love to eat?
Well, new babies love it so much that they pack away a milky meal
eight to twelve times a day! For babies,
all this eating means hours
of pleasure from sucking, sucking, sucking.
Some people say that babies eat like “little pigs,” but even piggies
have a hard time holding a candle to a baby. Every day, young
infants “snort down” about three ounces of milk for every pound of
their body weight. That’s equivalent
to an adult drinking five
gallons of whole milk a day, seven days a week. No wonder they
need to eat so often.
2.
It turns on their calming reflex. Babies suck to eat, but sucking
is yet one more way prehistoric fetuses
used to turn on their
protective calming reflex and improve their chances of survival.
Sucking for food is called eating, and sucking for soothing is called
non-nutritive sucking. If your baby is hungry she’ll probably only suck a
pacifier for a minute before crying,
as if to complain, “Hey, I ordered
milk—not rubber!” However, if she just wants some comfort, she’ll
happily suck on the pacifier for a good long while.
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