touch
“Touch comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language, and the last, and it always tells the truth.”
— Margret Atwood
From the moment they are born, children are sensory explorers. Their little hands flail about incidentally touching their own faces, their clothing, their blankets. After a few months, they gain control of their hands and spend their days learning first to pull them into their own mouths, to grasps their own hands, to reach out and touch their parents and eventually, between their hands and their mouths, they are exploring everything with touch. They relish in the world. Part of our parenting work is making sure that we stimulate these senses and provide ample space, opportunity, and material for their work.
Sensory development in the first three years of life allows a child to become oriented to their own bodies and stimulates the capacities by which they relate to the world and will come to relate to other human beings. The body is an intricate system that has so many abilities within its design. The sensory input within the first three years serves to ignite, awaken, and engage those functions. Much like a finely built watch which has all of the gears and wheels, the potential for rhythm, but needs the stimulation of winding or movement to initiate it into action.
Touch is one of the most important senses in early childhood. It awakens a child’s awareness of where their own body ends, and the outer world begins. It helps a child map their body and serves to build a child’s boundaries so that they do not spill out into the world around. Sense of touch begins in utero. Baby begins to feel sensation as they grow within their mother’s womb. At eight weeks, baby has receptors for touch on their face. By 22 weeks they can feel pain. By the time a fetus is 26 weeks, they can feel the gentle caress when mother lovingly rubs her pregnant belly. Most of us are unaware that the instinctive holding, cradling, patting, and caressing that mothers shower on their pregnant bellies stimulate the baby’s sense of touch. The process of a natural birth further stimulates this sense—the squeezing of the contractions of labor as the child makes its way out into the world is critical. The sensory input beginning at birth jump starts the process of nervous system myelination in which the protective layer of fat so necessary for healthy functioning forms around the nerves. The more the senses are stimulated, the thicker and healthier the layer of protection. Research has shown that children born of cesarean section often need a boost in sensory support to make up for the stimulation of a vaginal delivery. However, when a child arrives, skin-to-skin contact right after birth has been shown to regulate a child’s heartbeat and body temperature, bring them in to rhythm, and nurture bonding. There are many touch stimulating practices, such as infant massage, that carry forward the healthy touch as the child grows and can support babies who need it most.
Healthy touch is necessary for healthy attachment.
Young infants rely on parents to stimulate and work with their sense of touch. How we handle them, how we stroke them, the lightness or firmness of our touch, frequently or sparingly we share our touch—all of these make a difference. Healthy touch is necessary for healthy attachment. There have been reports of infants in orphanages who have perished from lack of touch because we have learned that touch stimulates growth, individualization, and nurtures bonding and attachment. On the other extreme, children who are touched and held constantly also have issues with attachment because touch is best stimulated and experience when it is not constant but when it releases and engages with regularity.
Massage
Massage is a very healthy and rhythmic way to continue your child’s tactile development. When doing infant and toddler massage, be mindful that different types of touch stimulate different functions in the child. Light touch stimulates the sense of danger that is there as a protective mechanism. Therefore, it can be very uncomfortable and is best avoided when working with a young child. Firm and deep message, worked from the head down to the feet and from the core out to the extremities, is preferable. Be observant to how your child reacts and adjust your firmness accordingly until you find something that they seem to enjoy or that seems to calm them. Whereas most baby massage techniques are geared towards infants, older toddlers enjoy this nurturing gifts as well. Of course, as they are always on the move, massages that are playful are more successful. Try pretending that your child is a pizza or a loaf of bread that is being kneaded and pulled. These moments can be warming, grounding, and very joyful for both parent and child.
Bath Time
Bath time is another opportunity for wonderful tactile stimulation. By its very nature, washing your child requires healthy touch from head to toe! Hands, washcloths, sponges, water, soap—all provide a different sensation. After the bath, a tight wrap in a warm towel, a gentle rub down with oil or lotion, and some good skin-to-skin can be a delightful sensory experience for our child.
Clothing
Our skin is our biggest organ and is covered in sensory receptors. We feel touched on every part of our body when we wear clothing, so for a child, this clothing is a sensory experience. Choose clothes that are soothing and comfortable. Rough textures, stiff fabrics, obtrusive seams, can be a sensory distraction and discomfort that keeps a child from playing freely. For infants and toddlers, all clothes should be play clothes. Clothes that are overly constructed can inhibit self- movement and exploration which is the work of this age.
Environment
Nature is full of tactile experiences. Be it the breeze on a child’s face, or the sand beneath their feet, the outdoors is rife with opportunities for stimulation of touch. To watch an infant crawl in the grass, experiencing, for the for the first time the tickle of the green beneath their knees is a pleasure. Leaves, sand, stones, dirt, water, wood—each of these textures informs the child and works deep into their nervous system—making them more comfortable in their own skin.
Play
Play areas should be filled with a variety of materials and substances. Play objects and toys made of natural material like wood and fibers such as silk and wool are safe and give true sensory feedback. Children also enjoy the feel of nature objects like shells, logs, pinecones, and stones and find many uses for them in their self-initiated play.
Games
Many childhood games can be wonderful moments for connection and healthy touch. Games can be a part of playtime for an older child or for the infant and toddler, can be incorporated during care giving moments like a diaper change, clothing change, or bath time. Traditional rhymes like “This Little Piggy” and “Round the Garden goes the teddy bear” are examples of play that can add a pleasurable interlude in the rhythm of the day. Children enjoy these moments of gentle tickling and contact that simultaneously build their sense of anticipation, rhythm, and speech. Face, hands, feet, bellies, backs, legs, arms—There are rhymes and games that highlight all the different parts, so a child’s whole body can have healthy stimulation.
Little Mice Scurry
Little Mice go creeping creeping all through the house
Creeping, creeping, creeping, creeping goes the little mouse
Big black cat goes stalking stalking all through the house
Looking, looking, looking, looking for the little mouse
Little mice they scurry, scurry, scuttle all around
Such away so lickety splickety where they can’t be found!
— Anjum Mir