Let’s discuss Why Babies Touch Themselves “Down There” + Other Weird Habits.
Have you experienced this? I think it is more common with baby boys. It’s time for a diaper change, you take off his diaper and the next thing, your baby starts touching (and sometimes pulling at) his penis? Don’t worry, it is not just your baby. It’s most of them!
“It’s very common to see babies start playing with their genitals around the five-to-seven-month mark,” says DeAnn Davies, the director of child development at Scottsdale Healthcare, in Arizona. “It means something very different to them than it does to you, I promise!” Babies are driven to touch themselves out of simple curiosity, she explains: “They’re such eager learners and explorers at that age—anything they can get their hands on is fair game.”
Do you feel a bit better? Lol. Read on mama.
“If you think about it, your child is also playing a lot with his hands and feet, but it doesn’t attract your attention the way it does when he touches his genitals,” adds Peter Vishton, Ph.D., head researcher at the Child Development Research Center at the College of William & Mary, in Williamsburg, VA, and creator of the DVD What Babies Can Do: An Activity-Based Guide to Infant Development. Your baby may spend more time on his equipment than on other places because it feels good.
Also Read: 5 Bad Coughs You Should Worry About In Your Toddler
What you Should Do
If you are not comfortable with it, provide a distraction: Hand your child a toy when his clothes are off so he has something different to focus on. Or else just go with the flow. “Accept that touching themselves is something kids do, and it’s just another way of learning about their bodies,” Davies says and it is nothing to get worried about!
Do you know? These are the 5 Skills Your Baby Learns from Story Time
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