07/17/2025
As soon as your baby is old enough to reach for and grab things, you might feel like they put everything in their mouths! It's completely fair to wonder why. This is called oral exploration, also known as mouthing. It's a key part of your baby's development that allows them to discover the taste and texture of different objects. 👶
The primary reasons babies put objects in their mouths are:
🔍 Exploring — Mouthing objects is one way that babies learn more about their environment, and about their own mouths and tongues work.
🦷 Teething — When a baby is teething, they may find relief from using an object to put pressure on their gums. If you're not sure whether your baby is cutting teeth or just exploring, you can look for other signs of teething like drooling, swollen gums, and fussiness.
❤️ Self-soothing — Sucking is a soothing behavior for babies, and many babies learn to use their hands, thumb, or a pacifier to calm themselves when they're tired, overstimulated, or hungry. Many babies start to root around and mimic the sucking motion in search of a bottle or breast when they're hungry, even before beginning to fuss!
You won't be able to keep your baby from putting everything in their mouth. So, what can you do to keep them safe? 🔒
1️⃣ Closely supervise your little one and remove small items from their environment. If you're not sure about the size of an item, a good rule of thumb to follow is that if an item can easily pass through a toilet paper roll, your baby can choke on it.
2️⃣ Store cleaning supplies, medications, toiletries, and batteries out of reach (up high or in locked cabinets) to reduce the risk of poisoning.
3️⃣ Place small items that can't be removed in locked cabinets and secure cords out of reach. For an extra layer of babyproofing, you can keep your baby contained in a baby-friendly area by using a baby gate.
4️⃣ Provide your baby with safe alternatives for mouthing, chewing, and sucking, like sensory toys and teething toys. Teething toys that can be cleaned between uses and frozen for extra pain relief are a great option for babies with sore gums. One of the best alternatives are their toes—yes, really! This encourages crossing their horizontal and vertical midline, which wakes up both the right and left hemispheres in their brain along with strengthening the corpus callosum (the bridge connecting the two hemispheres). Keeping your baby's feet bare encourages them to play with their feet and toes for easy learning opportunities!
