Pinching and Pulling in your 10-12 Months Old Baby
While your baby is growing up he is trying to explore the world around him. In the initial few months your baby is unable to move his hands or legs smoothly as his muscles are still developing. But at around 10 months when the baby is completely free, he feels like exploring the world around him in unique ways!
Why Do Babies Pinch and Pull?
1. Babies are Now in the Exploration Stage
They are experimenting by biting, pulling, pinching, holding, etc. They are basically exploring the cause and effect in this new world. Meaning that your baby will pull your hair and then see your reaction to this behaviour. He will try a couple of more times to see if the reaction is the same. And if you show an extreme reaction of being upset about it, your baby might be fascinated and want to understand the reason for the extreme reaction.
2. Sometimes Your Baby May Bite, Pull or Pinch Because He is Upset and is Learning to Show it to You and the World that he is Upset
Be careful how you react when you are upset, because your baby might try and copy the same reaction when he is upset.
3. At times Pinching, Pulling, Biting is also an Attention Seeking Behaviour
This generally happens when your baby feels you haven’t been giving him sufficient time for play!
Cause and Effect Paradigm
If your child is almost always involved in this behaviour of pulling, pinching or biting either you or any other person, then the first thing you need to do is start thinking of the possible causes of this behaviour. Also explore how you react to such instances. Is your reaction encouraging your baby to display this behaviour more often?
An example of the above is if your child is pulling your hair or his own hair in anger, shouting at your baby won’t be of any help. In fact shouting will only add to his frustration and he may start pulling more fiercely. The ideal reaction would be for you to stay completely calm. Look into your child’s eye with love and place your hand on his forehead and soothe the forehead slowly with love and keep repeating “calm down, my baby”. You will notice your baby relaxing within a few seconds. You may be angry and frustrated too, however hide your anger and display love. Your child will learn this from you soon.
Useful Tips
- During anger bouts in your baby a good option is to divert your child’s attention by taking him out in the open air. A garden or any place which is open and has natural beauty around it would be helpful to soothe and calm down your baby.
- When the anger phase is over and your baby is now calm, talk to him about the side effects of anger and teach him creative ways to communicate with you when he is angry like putting his thumbs down (the opposite of thumbs up). He can put thumbs down and start moving it in a fast pace. This gives you a hint and you can handle the situation before it gets out of hand.
It’s always a good idea to keep your baby engaged and create a positive environment during his growing years. All the best!
