Is it okay for babies to chew on random shit?
Yeah, I think so. My baby has rarely been sick, and she’s a year old. She hasn’t gone through any of those scary baby illnesses, never had so much as a drippy nose that lasted more than a week.
I’m not even sure she’s gotten a full-blown fever even after her shots.
Now, to be fair, we don’t have pets that lick things or defecate on the floor, but my husband has some stinky feet, and he works construction and sweats all day…
And our baby has a thing for feet. Especially socks and shoes.
And my husband likes to take his socks off in the living room, which is the only room of the house where our baby is allowed to roam free.
I know you know where this is going.
He’ll come home and take his socks off and put his feet up.
Aurelia will come along and see his socks and think what a wonderful human dad is that he would give her such an exciting-smelling gift. I will witness this exchange while I sit by with my crochet project. As the baby chews on the socks and flaps them around, my husband won’t notice for a minute or two. Then, when he does, he’ll take the socks away and chastise her (she’s a baby and doesn’t know what words me) for chewing on his gross socks.
At least it gets him to put his socks in the laundry about half the time. Other times, he’ll just put them somewhere else and forget about them, and she’ll find the socks again later on and the whole thing will start all over.
Now that my baby is eating solids (which, are purees really solids? A topic for another time), I’ll put some banana slices or some cubed cheese in a bowl and set it on the floor in front of her and let her eat it. I use the high chair, too, when I care about the mess.
Sometimes she strews her cheese and bananas all over the floor and she’ll play for a while and come back and eat them later. To be honest, I vacuum almost every week. During certain seasons when we track in more dirt, leaves, and salt, I’ll sometimes vacuum every other day. However, some people think it’s gross to let babies eat off the floor.
I say, babies need to diversify their gut biomes, too. My brother used to eat dirt by the handful, and he’s 6’4” and healthy as a horse. Sometimes healthier.
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