b e n j a m i n f a l k e n b e r g

When Benjamin used to suck his thumb while eating, we initially got annoyed by it, because it generally ended up creating a huge mess of baby food everywhere…more on the baby than in the baby. It was pretty frustrating for us as parents.

Eventually, he stopped doing it, and we were relieved.

Zachary, on the other hand, is a regular thumbsucker…but only when he wants something. He doesn’t suck his thumb unless he is hungry or tired…or, well, both.

He sucks his thumb while he eats his cereal or whatever, too, but we think this falls under the “hungry” category. With each new spoonful of food, he follows it in with his thumb and sucks, and it appears to help him ingest the food. And yeah, it sometimes makes things a bit messy. But it also seems to help him get the food in and down, and he pulls his thumb out when he’s ready to take in more spoonfuls of food, so we just don’t worry about it.

The net result of basically letting the thumb sucking while eating thing go is that it’s less hassle than it was before when we were constantly trying to control it with Benjamin. It’s proven to be one of those choose-your-battles things that we’ve decided to just let go.

We’re not experts of any sort, so do whatever you want with your own children…but from our perspective, if your infant can’t stop sticking their thumb back in their mouth after every spoonful of food, well, just let him or her do it. Engage with your baby–talking, smiling, etc–and you’ll find that all that thumb-related hassle was mostly created by you and not your little eater.

For us, everyone–everyone–is soooo much happier in the end.

And of course, you still need to watch your baby and see if they’re engaging in extreme sucking of thumb or pacifier that might affect their development of new teeth or jaw, etc. Zachary isn’t strong or frequent with his sucking, so we’re not worried…and like Benjamin, we anticipate the thumb need will eventually just vanish on its own.

Zachary’s three-month birthday is today, December 24th. It’s hard to believe it’s already been three months!

He’s looking and doing great! He is still looking older than he really is–probably around 6 months old in appearance due to his size. He’s not at all fat, he’s just… more developed. People can’t believe he’s as young as he is for the size he is…and of course given his headstart being so big at birth, it’s not really that surprising!

He’s doing a lot more looking around, babbling, recognizing voices and faces, and in the last couple of days, he seems to have noticed that he has feet. Very cool. He’s such a mellow, easy-going baby… He found his thumb a couple of weeks ago now, so he self-soothes as necessary, and puts himself to sleep. He’s ticklish, and giggles. He can relax on his own for incredible lengths of time compared to his older brother at the same age. He can also roll over to his side already… and from the looks of things, it won’t be too much longer before he’s all the way over. Wow!

Yes, pictures (and more…!) are coming!

OK, so he’s eating solids, and eating quite well. That’s great. He’s also teething, and that’s great too… but he’s soooooo messy now when he eats!

He’s recently decided that he should stick his left thumb or another finger (but 90 percent of the time, it’s his left thumb) in his mouth after he gets a spoonful of food–before he’s chewed, swirled or swallowed the food at all–and suck on that digit until the cows come home.  And in the process of doing this, he ends up slathering food all over himself, the table, his Bumbo seat… Our favorite places to find food after a meal is in his ears or in clumps in his hair.

Oh–eating now takes forever!

It’s something to do with teething, we’re told, but we watch him make a HUGE mess and while it’s sort of endearing and funny to watch, you then realize he’s not someone else’s kid and that it’s happening to you, and it’s your mess to clean up… At that point, you feel like you’re regressing somehow with his feedings and learning to eat.

We’re trying really hard not to take the whole thing too seriously or personally, but wow!

Stacey and I were talking last night and realized that Ben’s pretty much not wanted anything to do with a pacifier or our pinkies in a couple of weeks, if not a little longer. If he gets really hungry, he’ll latch onto a pinky or nook for a few seconds…until he realizes it’s not food, and then he rejects it, with prejudice.

Is this permanent? No idea. He never really liked the pacifier anyway, but he did have a thing for Mom and Dad’s pinkies. Must be a texture thing. He still roots around on his hand, though, and is getting pretty good at finding his thumbs when he needs to suck on something (particularly when he’s ready to nap).

We’ve also forgotten to mention that he seems to be teething like a crazyperson, chewing on fingers–doesn’t matter whose–toys, etc, and drooling like crazy, too. He seems to really focus on the left side of his mouth, so maybe that’s where his first tooth will come in? We’ll keep you posted, of course. :)