Saturday, June 18, 2011
What's the deal with the sucking?
I know that newborns & infants are programmed to suck. I get it. It's an evolutionary drive. Suck. Eat. Grow. Live. Flourish. But what is the deal with the continuing obsession with sucking as la cocotte nears her 2nd birthday? In a move that was traumatic to all three of us, we recently weaned her from her nuk (a.k.a. dummy, paci, soother, suss) though she still gets it in the stroller, the car and in bed. That's the deal we negotiated (negotiating with a two year old is like negotiating with the CEO of a Fortune 500 Company... not tons of wiggle room and prone to interpreting things favorably in their direction). But when she needs that nuk, she NEEDS it. I see her in her crib sometimes when it falls out and she (in her sleep) frantically opens and closes her mouth like a baby bird and will almost suck on the air. She is still nursing and I don't see her (actually to be honest, either of us) giving up that habit anytime soon. Heck is any of my random body parts get close to her mouth she will suck on them - recently my forearm strayed near her baby bird mouth while she was sleeping and sure enough, she latched. I'm not complaining, just puzzled. What is the deal with the non-nutritive sucking??
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Oh, boy. Hesitant to give an honest response here. But The Lorax is now nearly 3½ and he is basically where La Cocotte is. Though the strange (sad) thing is he only needs his nuk when he is with ME. The second he sees me at day care, he asks for it. But if I'm with him all day, we have the same rules as you guys have, exactly. The part I'm really hesistant about writing is though The Lorax is not breastfeeding, he really really wants to, now that he has seen me display the milk that is there (I shouldn't have done that). He asks about it all the time in public!!! "May I have milk from your breast??" People are really staring to wonder. And then SR asks, too. :) Perhaps this desire never goes away and it just becomes too socially unacceptable to go around with a nuk.
ReplyDeleteI could have written this post! My peanut is only 17 months and still breastfeeding and I don't see her giving it up anytime soon. It's the first thing she wantts when she sees me (morning, after work, when she's fussy). I kind of like being the one who can fullfill that need :) It's good to hear about others still breastfeeding past a year since I get some comments about how I should stop :(
ReplyDeleteAs for the nuk, we've managed to get donwn to just in her crib, although she grabs it when she sees one lying around and run and hide with it so we can't take it away, smart kids!
I think I agree with SLG, the desire probably never goes away (at least until they get much older) it is just something not accepted socially.
I think it takes a long, long time for some. For example, my sister sucked her thumb until she was 16 (at which time she took up smoking).
ReplyDeleteHey PPC, This isn't related to your post as I have no idea about babies :) But to answer your questions about Shasta - we did have crampons for the morning ascent and descent (snow too hard to slide down on bum) and we took the avalanche gully route which means no glaciers to rope up for. Last year at this time there was only snow on the trail - everywhere else was bare rock...fingers crossed things warm up and melt for your trip in July - that sounds like a lotta fun! I'd love to do Whitney someday too...
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