The child is hungry... but when seeing the mother's face smile instead of eating normal milk? 😊

The child smiled until he forgot to eat milk... normal? 😊

If you are about 2-3 months old, you are hungry, but when you put a bottle in your mouth, smile, laugh, ooh ah, make eye contact, or stop eating to look at your parents' face, do not panic, because this behavior is common and often a sign that you are developing better brain, mood, and communication.

During the first month of life, most babies spend a lot of time breastfeeding and sleeping. The response to their surroundings is not very good because the nervous system and vision are not fully developed, but at about six to eight weeks or two months of age, most children begin to have a social smile or "communication smile," unlike a spontaneous smile in their sleep at birth.

This smile is one of the key developments that show that your child's brain begins to associate the caring person's face with a sense of security, warmth, and happiness. Your child begins to smile when you see your parent's face, make eye contact, sound, and wait for an adult to smile or talk back. These small interactions may seem ordinary, but they are actually the cornerstone of language learning, socializing, and the bond between your child and your parent.

As vision improves, the child begins to see the details of his face, colors, shadows, and movements around him. At the same time, the auditory system can distinguish his parents' voices, speech, and sounds better than before, so the whole world begins to become a more interesting place than at birth.

As a result, many children periodically start to stop suckling to make eye contact, smile, make a sound, or look at what is happening around them. Some smile as soon as they see their parents' faces, some laugh when they hear familiar voices, or some stop eating to listen to the sounds they are interested in. These behaviors do not mean that their children are not hungry or do not like milk, but that the brain is learning and processing the environment more.

Many parents may feel concerned that their children suck incontinuously or do not eat all their bottles, even though they previously ate well. In fact, if they still receive enough milk throughout the day, gain weight according to the criteria, urinate normally, and are still cheerful, alert, stopping eating at intervals to smile, play, or communicate is a normal age.

What is Responsive Feeding?

Today, many child health organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the World Health Organization (WHO), focus on the concept of Responsive Feeding, or "Responding to Children's Signals."

This idea means observing what the child is telling through his behavior and responding appropriately instead of trying to get the child to eat according to an adult.

Infants can show signs of their own hunger and satiety at birth, e.g.

Hungry sign

* Start moving your mouth or licking your lips

* Turn to what touches the cheek (Rooting Reflex)

* Suck a hand or clench into the mouth

* Restless

* Crying (which is often a late-stage hunger signal)

Full signal

* Slowly suck or stop sucking

* Facing away from a bottle or breast

* Release nipples or bottle nipples

* Relax. Hands off.

* Sleep or start paying attention to your surroundings instead

So if you stop sucking to smile, look at our face, or make a sound, your parents can take a break, talk, smile, or make eye contact with your child, and then come back and breastfeed when they are ready. There is no need to immediately put the bottle back in their mouth, because breastfeeding is not a competition about who eats all the bottles first, but a communication process between the child and the parent.

Stopping eating to smile doesn't mean you're not good at eating.

Children aged 2-3 months begin to have a longer waking period. The brain has rapid neuron network formation. Attention to the environment increases daily.

Child development researchers explain that at this age, babies begin to have the ability to "divide their attention" between eating and perceiving their surroundings, so it is not strange for them to stop eating to look at their faces, smile, or listen to their parents' voices.

For some children, the most interesting thing in the world may not be the bottle of milk, but the smile of the person holding him.

Lactation is not just a matter of food.

Responsive Feeding has found that breastfeeding is one of the most important activities for building parent-child relationships.

During breastfeeding, the baby receives not only energy or nutrients, but also touch, eye contact, tone, smile, and responsiveness from the nurturer; these stimulate the creation of neural circuits in the brain, promote language learning, emotional control, trust, and long-term attachment.

Stop sucking and looking at your face, smiling, or clamoring, so it may encourage adults to "interact" rather than refusing to eat milk.

Research has also shown that children who respond appropriately to hunger and satiety signals are more likely to learn self-regulation of intake, which can have a positive impact on future eating habits.

So what should I do?

If you stop eating to smile or play during meals, try this.

🤍 Smile and make eye contact.

🤍 Talk in a soft tone.

🤍 waiting for you to eat again.

🤍 If there's a lot of distractions, try breastfeeding in a room that's too quiet and light.

🤍 Do not force your child to continue eating immediately if he is communicating or on a suction break.

🤍 Observe the whole day of eating rather than just one meal.

Some children may continue to eat milk at every meal, while others prefer to rest periodically. Both can be normal if the baby still receives enough milk and grows with age.

When should I see a doctor?

While smiling, playing, or stopping eating intermittently is common, a pediatrician should be consulted if you find

* Eat less milk continuously for several meals

* Weight loss or weight loss

* Less urine, obviously.

* seep, not wake up, not respond

* Difficult suckling, frequent choking, or breathing tired while eating

* Abnormally vomiting

* Fever or comorbidity

Assessment in combination with weight, height, number of wet diapers, and overall development can be better told than by looking at the amount of milk in a particular meal alone.

The most important thing

During the first few months of his life, eating milk is still his child's main source of nutrition, but at the same time, his brain is growing rapidly and begins to discover that there are many interesting things on earth.

Faces of parents

Smile

Tone

Sight

Touch

This is the first set of lessons in life.

So if one day you stop suckling and smile so widely that you forget to eat, don't always worry.

Maybe... he's choosing to take a short time to tell us that.

"I saw Ma Mie." 🤍

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