{"id":53781,"date":"2019-03-08T03:57:45","date_gmt":"2019-03-08T03:57:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.babyhealthandcare.com\/weird-toddler-self-soothing-habits-when-to-worry\/"},"modified":"2019-03-08T03:57:45","modified_gmt":"2019-03-08T03:57:45","slug":"weird-toddler-self-soothing-habits-when-to-worry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.babyhealthandcare.com\/de\/weird-toddler-self-soothing-habits-when-to-worry\/","title":{"rendered":"Weird toddler self-soothing habits: When to worry"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"EBIKES\"<\/a><\/div>
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\n Photo: iStockphoto <\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

My three-year-old daughter fiddles with her belly button. She has been doing it since she was two and a half. It would happen randomly\u2014she would reach for her navel, just casually poking around, while she was getting dressed, playing or chatting. While it\u2019s not quite as gross as, say, nose picking<\/strong> or hair chewing, I began to worry that it was becoming a habit and some kind of response to stress or discomfort.<\/p>\n

Turns out, there\u2019s no shortage of other bothersome self-soothing habits among toddlers and young kids. Thumb sucking and nail biting<\/strong> are biggies, of course, along with skin picking, hair pulling, teeth grinding and chewing on just about anything.<\/p>

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So, what\u2019s going on?<\/h2>\n

Most of the time, these repetitive behaviours are a perfectly normal developmental phase and arise from a need to self-regulate. \u201cThey\u2019re very common because kids at this age don\u2019t understand what emotions are and try to do anything they can to soothe themselves,\u201d says Jennifer Kolari, a child and family therapist and author of Connected Parenting: How to Raise a Great Kid. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sometimes it\u2019s obvious why a child might have picked up a new self-soothing technique. Looking back at my daughter\u2019s belly button quirk, I realized that it began around the same time that she started potty training<\/strong> and<\/em> transitioning to a new preschool room at daycare. Though she didn\u2019t seem stressed by either event, it\u2019s possible that this helped her deal with these new situations.<\/p>\n

The origin of a particular habit itself may also be traceable. Kolari says many kids (including her own daughter when she was younger) touch their eyebrows obsessively, sometimes to the point of rubbing off the edges completely because it reminds them of stroking the hair on their mother\u2019s arm when they were being fed as babies.<\/p>\n

Miranda, a mother of three, has a four-year-old son who, as a toddler, used to like putting his hand in her armpit. It reminded him of that cozy skin-to-skin contact when he was a baby.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe brain likes comfort and associates comfortable things with whatever was happening in the moment,\u201d says Kolari. Toddlers look for comforting sensations that were familiar to them as babies\u2014sucking, touching, skin-to-skin contact\u2014and find a way to repeat them. Kolari explains that these behaviours repeat themselves as a result of forming neural pathways. \u201cA habit is basically formed when you\u2019ve laid down enough track, or neural hardware, and then you just can\u2019t help it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

How should parents handle self-soothing?<\/h2>\n

\"little
\nWhy toddlers put stuff up their nose<\/span>\u201cDon\u2019t shame your kids when you notice these behaviours,\u201d says Kolari. \u201cDistraction is probably better.\u201d You can also try casually redirecting a habit to a more socially acceptable behaviour. Kolari recommended that I try putting some Play-Doh in a thimble or small container for my daughter. \u201cFind something that feels the same but is one step removed from what she is doing,\u201d she says. \u201cYou can change that, and eventually it will just go away. Be casual about it by saying something like \u2018Hey, let\u2019s not bug your belly button today and try this instead.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

For behaviours that may cause harm, such as hair pulling, try gently redirecting their hands. If they\u2019re older, use a reduction technique or a substitute, such as a doll. \u201cThey can pull at the doll\u2019s hair and then slowly change that,\u201d says Kolari. \u201cUsually, it\u2019s about giving them something else that\u2019s almost as satisfying but not as detrimental.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CALM technique<\/h2>\n

Kolari teaches parents the \u201cCALM technique\u201d to deal with a range of behavioural issues, including signs of anxiety<\/strong>. CALM is an acronym: C is for connecting by dropping whatever you\u2019re doing, such as putting down your phone, and using your face and body to show your child that you are fully engaged with them; A is for affect matching by matching the look on your face to the expression on theirs when they\u2019re reacting to something; L is for listening by paraphrasing, summarizing, clarifying and wondering out loud with your child about why they might be feeling the way they do; and M is for mirroring by showing your child that you\u2019re feeling what they\u2019re feeling in that moment. You\u2019re empathizing and not trying to fix it.<\/p>\n

Baby play<\/h2>\n

Kolari highly recommends upping the baby play and told me to try it with my daughter. For 10 to 20 minutes a day, she suggested declaring \u201cWho cares if you\u2019re three?\u201d and wrapping my daughter up in a blanket, giving her a bottle of water, rubbing her nose and just letting her be a baby. \u201cShe is three, so at this age she is becoming aware that she isn\u2019t a baby anymore and it\u2019s a bigger world out there,\u201d says Kolari. \u201cIt\u2019s not unusual at two, three and certainly four to feel an increase in anxiety, which can sometimes come out in little behaviours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIgnoring the behaviour can work, too,\u201d says Kolari, \u201cbecause it may just go away.\u201d<\/p>\n

When should you get it checked?<\/h2>\n

If you\u2019re starting to worry about your kid, talk to a doctor or child therapist<\/strong>. Jenny, a mom of two, was concerned about her four-year-old son\u2019s habit of pulling his top lip and stroking his Cupid\u2019s bow. \u201cAfter several months of him doing it at least five times a day, we began to wonder whether this habit might be related to a learning or developmental issue that we should explore further with his paediatrician,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Jenny was worried about the possibility of autism<\/strong>. While most weird toddler behaviours are nothing to worry about, occasionally these habits can be a sign of something bigger going on neurodevelopmentally. \u201cWe would look at autism if your child has poor social interaction, language delays and those repetitive behaviours tied together,\u201d says Joanne Vaughan, a paediatrician in Toronto. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the repetitive behaviours or self-soothing; it\u2019s in the context of other things, particularly the social piece. For kids with milder autism, their language may not be affected, but the social piece, like talking back and forth, is. They can talk, but they might be talking about something that isn\u2019t what you\u2019re asking them about.\u201d For Jenny\u2019s son, both his teachers and paediatrician didn\u2019t notice anything concerning about his behaviour, which put her more at ease with the habit. \u201cAs he grows, he is developing other, less visible self-soothing techniques and becoming more comfortable and confident in situations that previously made him anxious or nervous<\/strong>,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

When will they grow out them?<\/h2>\n

Kids usually grow out of these behaviours by age four or five, when they become more aware of their emotions and don\u2019t need these physical crutches anymore, says Kolari. \u201cYoung kids are repetitive and have many bizarre little rituals,\u201d she says. \u201cThere are some adults who walk around with weird behaviours, but most people don\u2019t do the things they did as babies anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

My daughter was amused by my attempts to divert her belly button habit by giving her a thimbleful of Play-Doh or an extra-squishy squeeze ball as a substitute, but I think what\u2019s had the biggest impact on her behaviour is the extra babying. For a few minutes a day, if she wants to sit on my lap while I spoon-feed her breakfast, I\u2019m game, and then she\u2019s more willing to let go and be a \u201cbig girl\u201d when we\u2019re all done. She is even giving her cute little belly button a break.<\/p>\n

tomatoes are the grossest thing ever<\/a><\/strong>?) „> \t\t<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/strong>
How to get kids to stop biting their nails
<\/strong>Look at my bum!: Toddlers and their private parts<\/strong><\/p>\n

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