Mouth Play.

Babies experience the world through their mouths. Sensation, texture, temperature, shape-all these qualities are explored as much by mouth as by sight or touch.

As babies experiment with this constant variety of oral touch and play, they not only are learning about the world, they are preparing for the more complicated oral demands of chewing and speech.

Children who have difficulty moving, playing with toys, or eating different textures of food sometimes need extra help to gain these experiences. This article looks at the normal stages of oral motor play and touch activities, to help you better understand your child's special needs.

Experiences before Birth
Even before they're born, babies touch and play around their mouths. By around 5 months in utero, babies are bringing their hands to their mouths to practice sucking. The closeness of this environment also gives the fetus lots of overall touch experiences, along with many different sensations from the mother's movements and position changes The baby's whole body then experiences deep pressure from the travel down the birth canal during delivery.

The Newborn
At birth, newborns are swaddled and held, and thus begins a lifetime of touch. In tummy lying, babies feel the pressure of the floor on their cheeks and faces. From this position, they also can feel their hands lying near their cheeks or mouths, and suck on their fingers or hands to calm themselves. As babies turn their heads from side to side in tummy lying, the face is given touch and pressure that stops and starts. As their heads bob up and down in early attempts to look around, their mouths occasionally bump into the floor or mattress. These touch experiences all are a little bit different as babies feel sheets, baby blankets, cribs, floors, cushions, and so on.

Feeding also gives lots of oral input. The feeling of the breast on the cheek while nursing, or of being held comfortably while nippling a bottle, gives the face and mouth early pleasant touch experiences. The shape and texture of the nipple in their mouths and temperature of the milk as it flows over their tongues add to the oral sensuality of the experience.

All of these very early touches serve to focus babies' awareness on their mouths. A newborn's mouth is super-sensitive, but these touch experiences decrease the sensitivity and help babies begin consciously to seek out their faces and mouths as separate and very important places for interacting with the world.

Mouthing Toys
Once babies learn to bring their hands and objects to their mouths, they greatly increase their oral motor and touch experiences. As they develop better visual and hand skills, they give themselves more and more of these mouthing opportunities.
Gradually, the ability to sit up and have their hands free for play opens up a whole new world of toys to mouth. The variety of textures and materials in baby toys-hard and soft, smooth and textured, plastic and fabric, cool and warm-all provide babies with a lot of "data" about the world.

Mouthing toys is an important way children learn to control the movements of their jaws and tongues-critical ingredients for chewing and speech. While gumming a teething ring, a child also is learning how to bite hard and bite soft, how to hold things with the jaw, and how to move the tongue separately from the jaw. Where all previous oral experiences have been relatively symmetrical (evenly distributed throughout the mouth), mouthing toys helps children realize they have different parts in their mouths, such as sides, tops, and bottoms. This is vital information for more complicated oral activities later on.

Teething
A whole new kind of oral experience is brought on by the pain and irritation of teething, the excessive drooling, and the relief felt by biting fingers, cool teething rings, baby biter biscuits, hard cookies, and just about anything else within reach. But even without the irritation of teething, mouthing and biting are babies' favorite ways to explore the world, discovering which things have a taste and which are just fun to chew on.

Introduction of Foods
Babies experience a whole progression of oral sensations when moving from strained, pureed baby foods to ground or mashed table foods, and then on to regular table foods. Bottles, spoons, forks, and cups all feel slightly different to the mouth. The gradual transition through these textures and utensils allows babies to practice the oral skills they need to prepare these foods for swallowing.

Other Oral Play
Bathing, face wiping, kisses from parents, pats from siblings, imitative play in games such as "peek a boo" all give a variety of touch and oral experien, - which help prepare little mouths for the complicate oral demands of chewing and speech. Physical Difficulties

Because of their special needs, some children haven't had the opportunity to participate in all of these normal oral experiences. Your child's pediatric physical, occupational, or speech therapist can help you discover which activities can be used to give your child the most therapeutic oral touch and help catch up on what's been missing.