Suggestions welcome/encouraged!
At about six months (maybe before) Abby had an obsession with putting things in her mouth - toys, coins, food, fingers... everything. It is an age-apropriate method of learning for an infant. They do a better job of using their five senses to learn about things around them than we do - I assume my desk tastes like dust and plastic, so I don't try to taste or smell it - I rely on touch and sight.
Abby has seemingly reverted to some sort of tasting/licking stage. Some things are adorable, like when she licks a blueberry before eating it. Licking her clean feet after bath time was cute, too.
Some things are a little weird, like the freezer in our basement and our fridge upstairs - maybe she was licking each to see if they were the same or different. (She didn't report her findings to me, but probably has a journal somewhere!)
Some things that she has licked are just disgusting - including our dog and, even worse, a piece of wood at Wendy's on Sunday afternoon. Just.Disgusting. I had to run through her high chair and over another chair to get her off of it. If you've never been to a Wendy's - it was the wooden fram between the old smoking section and the old non-smoking section. It's about a foot wide and she loves to run a circle and climb over it. Fun game - gross twist to it.
Our particular Wendy's is not the cleanest thing around, so there were jokes about spots and blisters that would show up in the afternoon, and we were relieved that they did not!
Help! How do I break her of this new game? I don't want to create a punishment necessarily, but this is one situation that I would like to stop before it goes too far...
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2 comments:
No advice here but I do have sympathy. We're going through a 'look at me, I have my fingers in my mouth AGAIN!' phase. It's disgusting.
Oh man, the first weird sentence out of my mouth when I became a parent was "Bean! Stop licking the dishwasher!"
Redirection works decently as does praising her for using her other senses. We have a book called No Biting which reinforces good places to do things, (like spitting, hitting, etc). It's simplistic but offers an easy to remember mantra. Not sure there's a licking page, but perhaps you could adapt. "No licking the furniture, what can we lick? Ice cream!" (It's in that format).
That phase? HARD. But, at least they're getting some immune benefits from it, at least after they get the plague. Good luck!
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