Erin

But by their second birthday, they have pretty much a good. Rotary grind too. And they're really starting to string two or three words together. and they have all 22 of their vowel sounds again, lining these things up, getting them ready to be a healthy eater and a great communicator.

Hello and welcome to Talking Toddlers where I share more than just tips and tricks on how to reduce tantrums or build your toddler's vocabulary. We're gonna cover all of that, I assure you. But here I. Our goal is to develop clarity because in this modern world, it's truly overwhelming, especially during these past two years. This podcast is about empowering moms to know the difference between fact and fiction, to never give up, to tap into everyday activities, so your stays on track. He's not falling behind, he's thriving through your guidance. We know that true learning starts at home and talking toddlers. This podcast helps you develop that with clarity, confidence, and clear communication. So let's get started.

Erin

One of my primary purposes for this podcast talking toddlers. Is to help new parents understand how learning cannot occur in a vacuum. That your babies and toddlers development is a process, physical linguistics, which is speech and language and cognition. All our skills built upon one another and interconnected. So this episode's format is a bit different because I'm sharing part of a Q and a recording during a parent training from last year. I pulled these two specific questions out because they relate to oral motor development, introducing solids to babies, and the questions around safety that most parents hold. Because it's so new and there were so many. Different variables. That parents are uncertain. And so my purpose here. Is to really help provide clarity. And help parents navigate this modern world with more certainty. So the first question has to do with tummy time eating and speech and how they all fit together. The second question. Was about how, how babies can chew and eat solids when they don't even have any teeth yet. And I hear this a lot, parents waiting or giving. Pureed foods for months on end because the teeth haven't erupted. And I explain how those two things need to work together in order to get your baby going with eating and talking So I hope you enjoy these explanations and I will continue to share Frequently asked questions and helping parents understand how these pieces are interrelated and that your baby, your toddler can do this. With, with your certainty and with your understanding. So I hope you enjoy Tummy time and speech you're thinking. Hmm. Really? I thought tummy time was for crawling and then crawling was for walking. Again, dots need to be connected. It's interrelated. We as human beings. Build systems within systems. And tell me, time is key. If I were a brand new parent today, I would say, tell me time. And breastfeeding are the two most critical elements that you could give to your baby for a healthy. robust beginning. So Tommy time builds this. The strength and coordination of the upper body, but it also builds ultimately the lower body in the sense that once they get the idea of how they can. Position themselves on their forearms and then position themselves on their hands with a straight arm. And really begin to lift their chest and then lift their torso. It's all building the front part of the body and the lower back and all, ultimately this tummy time from day. Number one, no, you don't put your brand new newborn baby on the floor on the blink and say here kid, go for it. No, you know that, I know that. But what you do is build their tolerance on your chest right after breastfeeding, or give it to your partner and they can do, uh, uh, Little incline on the sofa with, some support behind the head. Or you can do the football hold. You can do it on the lap. you start with a few seconds, build to a couple of minutes, I want to focus on that tummy time supports the gross motor, right? The big muscles, our chest, our torso, our back.

and the fine muscles in the hands and fingers. Because as they push firmly on different surfaces, your lap, the floor, the couch, the bed. And really work their hands and fingers out. This is getting them ready for sitting up in the high chair and reaching and using their hands to feed themselves. And then. Mastering the whole utensils. These motor skills are developing. From the inside or from the center of the body out. And this tummy time is helping. I connect this strength and coordination. Getting them ready for these critical milestones.

Erin

And so it's building the shoulder is building the neck, right. We know that. All of this supports early eating. And speaking. And so at six months of age, if you want your child ready to sit in that high chair with some supports, because a six month old might not fit in a full fledge high chair, but. They can independently sit on the floor in a, in a tripod position. They can stabilize their body and reach with their hand and start to bring things to their mouth. Sometimes they'll, you know, miss their mouth and get it all over. That's why we have to embrace the messiness. in this early, solid food introduction and that's what it is. Introduction you're you you're helping them understand the flavors, but also the different textures and densities of food. Building that job. But it's in unison with tummy time. And most of you may or may not be aware that tummy time came into effect back in the 1980s because of SIDS, right? SUD. Sudden infant death syndrome, which was horrific. So the medical community got together and said, okay, how can we mitigate this and protect our children and put our families at ease. Let's start sleeping all of the babies, on their backs. Well, you know, up to this point historically, Nine out of 10 babies who had sleep on their bellies and they'd have naturally have tummy time. So now we have to weave it into every single waking window. Uh, to help them build their tolerance, just like you're slowly introducing solid foods with them. Day by day by day. That's what you do with tummy time too. It's all. Connected. And if they have solid tummy time each and every day, several times, A day. Starting with, like I said, a few seconds, a few minutes, you know, in longer and longer, you're building engagement with them over time. Then they can sit up and there they have the physical right, the gross motor, but they're also the gross motor are supporting the fine motor. So we have to know or understand how these things. Literally line up with one another developmentally and support your baby. in true. Interconnection or it there, the sensory systems are connecting with a physical system that's proprioceptive. and then your baby is also cognitively learning. How he, or she can move his physical body in space. And navigate whether he is on tummy time and beginning to crawl, or, approximated, crawls as well as sitting upright and engaging with the family during mealtime, all of this is literally feeding the brain nourishment, but also building those social connections and building the understanding of what's happening in his little baby world of. whether it's a small family or maybe he does some hybrid with some daycare or it goes to grandma's. but it's still a relatively small circle. He doesn't really know about the United States or the world problems. All he knows is. That he, his goal is to survive another day, enjoy himself. Why he does it and expand his understanding of his relationship. With himself. Physically and emotionally, and his relationship with others. So the idea that, tummy time. Is literally laying that foundation. For good and healthy eating and really, really strong. Speech and language skills. So keep that in mind every time your baby starts to fuss and you're like, oh no, it hurts my heart. When my baby's uncomfortable and doesn't like, tell me time, what can you do to help? I support him and build his tolerance because the more that he learns over time and it takes days and weeks and months. To really be able to support himself and getting ready to crawl. Right. Typically kids crawl around eight months. So if you gave them six months of good tummy time and human connection. Right. Then they're ready to sit in the high chair and be introduced to foods at about six months. Continue with that. Tell me time and they'll be ready for crawling and they get more and more and more independent with their eating. The gross motor, the fine motor in their hands and fingers. Managing the utensils. As well as now, he has good. lip closure and jaw height, nasal breathing, and now he's ready for talking to so, and, They're going to coo kind of make sounds by accident in those first couple of months. And then, by three months of age to six months to nine months, they're really babbling and babbling means that they have. Enough oral motor coordination. That they're, changing up the sounds, you know, with a good breast support, inhaling and slowly exhaling as they're making. Longer and longer strings of sounds it's nonsense, but they're doing it on purpose. Whether to get your attention or to, to socially engage with you or they're imitating you or you're imitating them. But that babbling is differentiated speech sounds, which comes from a strong torso, strong, strong ability to sit upright. And then be able to move some of these fine motor, the jaw, the lips and the tongue. And we want that differentiated. Sounds in the front of the mouth, the back of the mouth in the throat area. Because the more they work out through early eating and early speech that the babbling and the, introduction to solid foods go hand in hand and the jaw is growing. You're thinning out those cheek pads. You're getting more space, right. In the mouth, the more that they move and they're beginning to become better and better. Chewers and swallowers so those first two years. So by that second birthday, They should have. A mature rotary grind chew like you. And I will take a bite of chicken, close our lips. Use a rotary grind to the way that we masticate our food. User tongue to be able to collect the food. Once we smush it down into another bolus or a ball again, and then swallow it down, once it's been masticated enough and you don't want your baby to overstuff his mouth. That's another, symptom telling you what's something's not coordinating here and I, and I need help. Mama. But by their second birthday, they have pretty much a good. Rotary grind too. And they're really starting to string two or three words together. and they have all 22 of their vowel sounds again, lining these things up, getting them ready to be a healthy eater and a great communicator. Let's talk about your number one fear when beginning to introduce solid foods to your baby, hopefully around six months of age, give or take a week or two, depending on your particular circumstance. But the number one fear is choking and gagging. And I understand that it's about safety and I get that. So in other episodes, we can talk about the high chair. We can talk about sitting and getting in the right posture. Posture, because that is key. We can. Also talk about how your baby needs to be independent in their sitting. Getting. And even though in the high tier, we might have to bolster them up or help them. with an extra box or book or shoe box or something. Duct. The tape to the foot rest, because we want those four by nineties, right? 90 degrees at the sitting in the hips, 90 degrees at the knees and 90 degrees at the ankles, but also 90 degrees at the jaw and the shoulders. And the key here is because it has to do with biting, chewing, and swallowing. And safety is always in the forefront, but what you're really doing is building oral motor strength. Stability and coordination through the jaw, the jaw muscle, which is called the master. But what's important is that in those first six months prior to introducing solids, Is getting your baby ready and able to bite down on a wide variety of foods. And the key is that it's not about. That your baby would instantly know how to chew. They have to bite through a different flavors and textures, like we've talked about before, but also different. densities and different resistance. Think about when you go to the gym and you can push 10 pounds a lot easier than 50 pounds, right? And so biting into, or trying to masticate, which is what we do when we chew an avocado or a banana is going to be different than say roasted broccoli. Or if you give them a chicken bone with some leftover chicken on it, you've removed the fat. You've made it safe, you know, remove the skin and all those ligaments and tendons. But there. Able to bite. On it. Uh, similar to what they do with a rattle or similar to what they do with a T there, or, you know, body parts on you. But the whole idea is that you're exercising, this muscle that for good jaw stability. And ultimately yes, in this whole introduction to baby food is about chewing and swallowing safely, but it also supports speech. So let me explain why. We actually have 22 vowel sounds in English and you're like, what? That doesn't make sense, Aaron. Don't we just have five, a E I O U. Yup. Those are letters. But we have 22 sounds. And how that works is that. We will put Letters together to make, I guess the long vowel. Right. But we also have diphthongs like you, right? So we're going from one jaw posture to another. When we slide into different. Positions for those vowels and by your child's second birthday, they should have all 22 vowel sounds and lo and behold, by their second birthday, they should have a mature adult mastication or what we call a rotary grind choo. So they're all developmentally in sync with one another, and it starts at six months when you're beginning to introduce a variety of taste textures. and density. And so that biding reflux that we're all born with. And with brand new newborns, you can do that. Put your little pinky and put a teeny tiny little pressure on their gum line. And they will bite back. It'll be that reflux. And if it's not there, then. You need to go talk to somebody, but the key here is that many, many parents will complain or question or be very uncomfortable giving them solids, even though they're well chosen and there's a different densities to them. Because they don't have teeth yet. But the flip side to that is the more kids bite down on things whether it's nine on a teether or nine on a bone or playing around with these different density foods And different textures then the teeth will begin to erupt through the gum line and that's key that's why kids will bite on things because they're teething not necessarily because they need that kind of rob which they do it feels good of course there's that sensory satisfaction of it but they're also biting through at and you need to encourage them to do that so their teeth do come in On time right and so when you have a baby who seems to have teeth coming in later it's typically not always but typically because they haven't had enough biting experience this is my point is to avoid picky eating right and to support excellent speech and language development they go In sync with one another Our goal here on on my channels and in my courses and in my one-to-one coaching is to go upstream and avoid your baby from falling off that cliff that Proverbial cliff where You know now they're 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 years old and they're a picky eater or they have poor chewing skills and maybe they're a mumbler so it's all interrelated and it starts at six months it starts you know closer to three and four months when you're now really giving them T there's and and rattles and they're naturally bringing things to their mouth To chew on and it not only feels good and helps regulate their systems their their proprioceptive system and their self-regulation as a human being but you're also building this jaw muscle So the key takeaway here is that you're helping your baby develop and build a coordinated oral motor system. And I've shared with hundreds, if not thousands of families over the years, that in order to eat and chew safely, in order to speak and build language, we use 26 muscles from our diaphragm up Through. 6, 8, 10, 12 months of tummy time. Into crawling. And then up to walking is building their motor gross motor and fine motor skills to get them ready for six months of age, sitting in the chair with good stability, good trunk stability, good head stability, good arm disassociation, which means I can hold my body still. And move the limbs independently. Hold my head still and move my jaw independently. And so biting. Chewing and swallowing, we'll build these muscles, getting them ready for a mature swallow pattern and a mature what we call rotary grind chew. And we can talk about the mechanics of all of that, but in the very beginning, 6 7, 8, 9 months of age, you're introducing a wide variety of flavors and textures and densities to build this jaw. And so biding on meat bones, right? Well cooked pork chops or a drum stick, or a steak bone that has good flavor. So as getting them interested and really. Wedding there whistle sorta speak, but also giving them that really good. Excellent. jaw strength workout. Plus with some tea, there's some appropriate tea there's or if you're giving them the spoon, hopefully in baby led weaning. You're letting your little guy. Lead the way and use his or her fine motor. Maturation, right. He's he is in charge of that spoon, dipping it in some mechanically soft foods, as well as some pureed foods and then bringing it to his mouth and helping him. Really develop that coordination, that the hand, the eye, as well as clearing things off with his lips and taking it in his mouth. But at the same time, all of these experiences, all of these motor planning opportunities is helping him desensitize that gag to reduce his risk of. Of choking. And what happens is they have that gag at the front of their mouth as newborns and babies to protect themselves. We all had it. And we, and so over time, the gag just. Moves or migrates toward the back. You and I have a gag reflex toward the back of our laryngeal area. And, and because we hopefully are pretty darn good. Chewers and swallowers. But your baby by the time they're six months. That gag reflex, because they've had a lot of experience extracting. Milk from the bottle or the breast. And so it is moving back further in the mouth. And so you can, he or she can put food. At their molars and help. Build even a stronger, understanding a sensory perception of what is safe in your mouth. And the more he gets to work that out through biting and early chewing, it's just kind of a munch chew, but the more they can build the coordination and help with every time they bite down those teeth erupt. So the key here is they need the opportunities for their gums to bite down on even really soft foods and then harder foods and teethers and toys and all of that to build the masseter muscle, the jaw muscle, because we need jaw height and stability for mature eating and chewing and swallowing. As well as speech. So if we look at the developmental milestones around their second birthday, They should have. Out, fairly mature. rotary grind, where we chew down a couple of bites and then we take our tongue and we swoop up the food in our mouth. Pull it back on our back molars to make another ball and two again, and our jaw is this in this beautiful dance of munch munch. And rotary, right? It turns, the jaw turns just as Scotia so they can collect the food and safely swallow at once it's been masticated or mushed down enough. With their saliva. At the same time. By their second birthday, they, they typically have. All 22 vowel sounds The vowel sounds required. The jaw to move in these precise steps. There's actually six steps. From the lower open sounds to the higher vowel sounds. And in another training, I can walk through more specifically of what that looks like, but for now, let me share these two contrastive vowels. a high E and a low all just so you can kind of play around with it in your own mouth and, and realize the significance of jaw and tongue relationship in. In connected speech, but also how the jaw really needs a lot of opportunity to practice. And develop. Into a remarkable part of your body, right? For speech for eating all of this. But just contrast the high E where that w like in the word, she or me. But the job position is almost closed. It's high, right. It's closed posture. And the tongue is also high as the sides of the tongue, the lateral muscles. Are pushing fairly hard against the upper upper molars. Right. Even if you don't have teeth there, you have the, that the teeth they're about to erupt as a baby, but you have the bone structure. And for the sound to travel down the middle of the oral cavity over the tongue, and it resonates in whatever space you make up, depending on how open or closed your jaw is and the position of your tongue. And that's how these fine motor coordination patterns are critical for speech sound. So now if we contrast that high E posture. With the open or where your jaw is now fairly open and that you have a low vowel sound, you have more space in your oral cavity. The tongue is also lower. It's not really moving in. This is a stagnant vowel production, right? It's not a, diphthong where we move. Like and, uh, bowel sound I, or you where we really move for one position and jaw. And tongue relationship to another. That's a different kind of understanding, but I just want you to get a feel in your own mouth of what your jaw is needed. And connected speech, but what your baby is trying to master in those first 24 months, all 22 vowel sounds. So in this, this low on sound. That the tongue is lower. Like I said, it's slightly retracted in the lower part of the mouth. A little taunt in the back. And that the sides again are pushing against the back, back back molars were perhaps your wisdom teeth will someday come in. But the body of the tongue and the tip, the front part is a little relaxed. So the interesting side note is that the tongue is not just one big muscle. It's a conglomeration of eight separate muscles that need to learn how to coordinate and do a lot of acrobats inside your mouth. There's a point of origin, like I've said before in the back of the throat. No point of insertion. And so it has to find. Stability and strength. And boundaries within the oral cavity on your molars and the gum lines, the front, the upper, the lower. Frontline where your, your, we call them alveolar ridges right there where those bumps behind your front teeth are. There's a lot of fine, fine oral motor coordination. And so when we look at. The jaw development. They need practice. All the time. In vocal play and talking cooing and babbling. And singing songs and. the exercise literal exercise by biting, chewing and swallowing. and it's a remarkable relationship that cannot be over stated I mean, it's has changed so much based on our modern lifestyle and we really. Have to. Recognize the importance of it. And, and the purpose here is just shining some light onto this relationship of the jaw, the tongue, the lips with, with your feeding, your baby and introducing solid foods at the same time that you're engaging with them and building their social communication. It's all connected.

So in summary. A typical, healthy, naturally developing kid who has been given the opportunities to learn how to bite, how to chew, how to swallow. Great foods with a wide variety of food density.

Erin

a wide texture. Each and every day, since they're been about six months of age, Then they have good jaw stability. And they're sitting there with their lips closed and their back teeth, slightly touching ever so slightly, just enough to put a piece of paper between their and their breathing naturally through their nose. So all of those physical maturity and functional skills set them up for great connected speech and language and excellent eating, mealtime, all of that. So it's interconnected. Like I'm always saying here. And we, our goal is to go upstream before your baby falls off the cliff. Metaphorically. And start, you know, needing a life jacket down here because they're a picky eater and they only have five or six. foods that melt in their mouth or they're gravitating toward only pureed or only soft foods or those pouches that are a nightmare. You know, that's a whole nother conversation, but I wanted to give you a snapshot of why biting is critical and exposing them to a wide variety of choices. Helps build the muscle and the coordination, the strength and the stability and what we call dis association. Right. We can keep our body stable and move our limbs. We can keep our jaw stable and move our tongue. So it's all beautifully connected. All right. So if you're interested in. Your baby really staying on track.

You'll want to subscribe so you won't miss any future episodes. And please share with friends and family, join the movement to help your baby. And your toddler thrive in this modern world together, we can accomplish so much more than struggling at home by yourself. We've got this. God bless and see you next week.