Don't put that in your mouth!

How many times have you said this to your baby or child? 🙋🏻‍♀️ Too many to count for me!
It’s so important to keep an eye on what your child is putting in their mouth. It needs to be a child-safe object, no small parts, safe material, and appropriate in size.
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...but did you know it is GOOD for babies to put things in their mouth. Babies use their mouths to explore new objects and textures. This helps them develop their sensory awareness. It ALSO helps build tongue strength!! 👅 .
As a child pushes a toy into their mouth the tongue pushes back against the toy creating resistance. This resistance helps the tongue to grow stronger which is very important for healthy speech development.
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This tongue strength will help them move their tongue to all the necessary places in their mouth to make a wide variety of speech sounds as they grow.
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So let them chomp, chew, and manipulate with those little mouths! You can clean the toy first if you’d like! 💦
... or do what I do and just hope germ exposure will help them grow a strong immune system 😆🤞🏻