Dear Dr. Debbie,
My 15-month-old insists on putting food into MY mouth when I’m feeding him. If I don’t immediately comply, he pulls my jaw down with one hand and feeds me with the other. He does this with the nanny, too.
Is this normal?
Not Really Hungry
Dear N.R.H.,
What you’re describing is perfectly normal at this stage of development.
One and the Same
In infancy a tiny human is completely dependent on his caregivers. Wrapped in long arms (or enveloped in a carrier) he is transported here and there by the long legs of the caregiver. He doesn’t’ need to decide where his little body will go; that other head (the caregiver’s) is in charge of that. The caregiver’s long arms reach for food or baby wipes or toys to take care of his physical and intellectual needs. Those amazing arms and that soothing voice provide comfort and feelings of security.
The interactions between the nurturer and the nurtured are the basis of the attachment relationship. As the baby learns that a cry is effective to get what he needs, and he reflects his caregiver’s happy face with his own smiles of joy, the bond between them grows. They jointly develop a communication system that includes touch and sounds. Soon the baby responds appropriately to spoken words. “Time for a bath!” or “Mommy’s home!” produce head to toe happy wiggles. Eventually the baby has words of his own. “Uh oh” and “bye bye” often follow words or hand signs for food, all taught to him through consistent interactions with the caregiver.
One way to describe the perspective of an infant about his caregiver at this stage is that hunger is experienced as a cry that wells up from his belly, pierces the air, and is quelled by the warm milk his caregiver gives him, with a soothing, “Aw, baby, you were so hungry!”. This is the entire universe of the baby’s understanding, the total oneness of the baby-caregiver unit.
To the baby, his body and the caregiver’s body are one.
You and Me
Two-way communication is integral to this two-parts-to-one-body entity. Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child has termed this interaction as “Serve and Return”. The term is taken from the game of tennis, in which a good serve is followed by a successful return. The goal of the adult-child volley in this case is for it continue successfully until the baby loses interest. Peek-a-Boo and Pat-a-Cake depend on turn-taking. Both parts of the unit play off of each other’s gestures and noises, to the satisfaction of both. An adorable video of comedian D.J. Prior chatting with his babbling baby while they watch tv together is a great example a successful Serve and Return interaction.
This practice of My Turn, Your Turn is teaching the baby that there are indeed two parts to the attachment relationship. He may suck on his own fingers and toes and enjoy the sensations in his mouth and his appendages at the same time, but most of his needs are taken care of by those longer legs and arms of his. The ones he doesn’t get physical sensations from. They’re still part of him, though.
So it makes perfect sense at his stage of development that hunger needs to be satisfied through both of his mouths.
My Body My Self
Research on body self-awareness as reported by the National Library of Medicine suggests that it’s not until about a year and a half that a toddler has the sense that he alone can control his body with his own mind. In one study, toddlers were asked to push a toy shopping cart which had a blanket wedged onto the rear axle. The handle of the cart was over the blanket, so all children in the study started off standing on the blanket. Younger toddlers did not grasp that they needed to step off of the blanket in order for the cart to move. However, children olderer than eighteen months may have struggled briefly with the cart but soon realized that their own body weight was impeding their progress.
In other studies with children between eighteen and twenty-six months of age it was observed that as children aged, they were making fewer and fewer errors in recognizing their own reflection, referring to themselves by name, and expressing self-conscious emotions.
An easy experiment to determine if your baby knows he is a separate person from you is the “Mirror test” developed by Gordon Gallup, Jr. You show the baby his face in a mirror. Later, you dab his nose with a tissue onto which you’ve put a contrasting color. For a baby with lighter skin, you can use red lipstick. For a baby with darker skin you can use cold cream. Wait a few minutes. Show him the baby in the mirror again. If he touches the face in the mirror the assumption is he doesn’t yet understand that it is a reflection of the physical object that is himself. If instead he looks in the mirror, sees the dot, and touches his own face, he has achieved the awareness that he has a physical self.
You are My Rock
Coincidentally, around eighteen months a child gets to be steady on his own two feet. Does your fifteen-month-old walk around while carrying things? If not, he is still keeping his hands available to catch himself at the next inevitable fall. Just around the corner for you and your little one is his realization that indeed he enjoys his newfound physical independence.
Margaret Mahler coined this phase “Rapprochement” or reconciliation. Now he knows he is a separate body from his caregivers. The psychological independence is exhilarating yet he is reassured that you are there if he needs you. A favorite toddler game at this stage is to walk about ten yards away from the caregiver (who knows her role is to sit in one place like the Rock of Gibraltar), then turn around, laugh, and quickly toddle back. It’s the toddler’s way of demonstrating that he is in charge of this package – his mind controls the placement of his body and Mommy/Daddy/Nanny will be right where I left them if I need them.
If he is still trying to feed you in a couple of months, take it as a gesture of reciprocity! You’ve served him well as essential parts of his being.
Dr. Debbie
Write your question to Dr. Debbie! Please include age(s) of your child(ren) and other details about the situation or concern.
Deborah Wood, Ph.D. is a child development specialist and founding director of Chesapeake Children’s Museum, located at 25 Silopanna Road in Annapolis.
CCM is open from 10 am to 4 pm daily. Online reservations are available or call: 410-990-1993. Walk-ins are welcome. Each Thursday there is a guided nature walk at 10:30 am. Art and Story Time with Mrs. Spears and Puppy the Puppet is on Monday mornings at 10:30 am. On Saturday, September 20, Mr. Alex presents Savoring Science: The Chemistry of Apples at 11 am with taste tests and hands on kitchen fun.
