Toddler keeps touching my face. How do I deal with this?
There are a lot of things that toddlers like to do repeatedly. These are things that they’ll keep doing again and again a bazillion times a day and never get tired of doing.
Some of those things are downright annoying, like slamming doors for instance or moving furniture around. Then there are some things that are straight up dangerous like unplugging wires and climbing furniture.
Then comes along the list of things toddlers do that are half way cute and half way exasperatingly “I’m going to scream and jump off a cliff if you do it again” type. Your toddler touching your face all day long is one of those things.
In the beginning, your child touching your face and holding it close to her is something quite magical. You savor in the sweetness of your little one holding your face with such love.
But by the 500th time in the day when she grabs your face, pinches your cheeks and attempts to lick your nose you feel you’ve had enough skin to skin contact to last you a lifetime.
There will be these experienced mothers out there who will tell you that years from now when your kids are teenagers you’re really going to miss this.
You’re going to miss those tiny little hands touching your face with all that love. And I’m sure they must be right.
But for right now, let’s just agree we need 10 minutes? Ten minutes in the day when no one is squeezing, prodding or poking away at our face. 10 minutes of bodily autonomy.
So before we get to HOW you should deal with this, it’s important to first understand WHY your toddler is constantly touching your face in the first place.
Toddler keeps touching my face. Why?
Your toddler keeps touching your face because she’s seeking comfort. Caressing your face reminds her that she’s safe and secure. It’s also a way for your toddler to connect with you and make her presence known. Lastly, touching your face is a way for toddlers to grab your attention, something that they’re always seeking to do.
Let’s go a little in depth into each of these 3 reasons.
3 Reasons Your Toddler Keeps Touching Your Face
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1. Seeking Comfort
Two year olds are tiny people living in a big world who constantly need reassurance of their parent’s affection.
Latching on to your face and frequently caressing/touching it reminds your toddler that they are safe and secure. Toddlers seek out soothing sensations such as skin to skin contact, sucking and touching which remind them of when they were a baby and try to repeat these behaviors.
According to Jenifer Kolari, author of Connected Parenting: Set Loving Limits and Build Strong Bonds with Your Child for Life and a child and family therapist, the reason these behaviours repeat themselves is becuase neural pathways have been formed.
Innumerable research studies show us that an infants cognitive development is strongly linked to the physical interaction they have with their caregiver.
The Urban Child Institute
Moreover, the benefits of physical touch from a caregiver doesn’t stop at childhood and extends well into adulthood.
2. Craving Connection
Toddlers find unique ways to connect with you – pulling your hair, tugging at your leg and touching your face are all ways for your toddler to communicate and connect with you. Its their way of saying “Hi there, I’m here too!”
3. Wanting Attention
This last one doesn’t even need saying. If you’re a toddler parent you already know that toddlers crave positive attention and will do whatever it takes to get some.
So if they see you’re lying down and on your phone scrolling away, texting, on a call, doing yoga… They feel the need to remind of you of their presence.
This task can be achieved most effectectively by grabbing your face and turning it towards them. And maybe licking your nose for added oomph.
Toddler keeps touching my face. What should i do?
It’s important to understand that your toddler is not touching your face to annoy you. She is simply seeking affection, connection and attention. Giving your child plenty of positive attention, keeping them engaged in activities and perhaps getting them a lovey to cuddle up with are great strategies to keep those tiny hands at bay. Also remember to frequently cut your toddler’s nails so you don’t get any scratches on your face.
Toddler Keeps Touching My Face – 5 Strategies You Can Try
1. Understand their need
As annoying as it can be to constantly get touched on the face with sticky little hands all day, it’s super important to remember why your kids are doing it in the first place.
They’re not doing it to deliberately bother you – they’re seeking comfort, connection and attention. When you keep this in mind, it’s easier to be a more empathetic parent with greater tolerance for surrendering bodily autonomy.
2. Connect with your child
One of the main reasons kids get clingy and touchy feely in the first place is because they’re seeking your attention. Implementing small (but very significant to your little one) gestures in your everyday life can do wonders. This is something I *try* to remind myself of every day. These gestures can be as simple as:
- smiling at your little one
- showing an interest in what your child is doing
- putting away your devices when your kids are around
- taking out the time to do fun things together
- praising your child when they try out new things/put effort into something
3. Keep them busy
When toddlers are bored, they’re more prone to doing attention seeking antics like slobbering all over your face or trying to stick their finger up your nose.
Put simply, the busier they are the less time they have to wind you up.
There are many simple to set up toddler activities that help keep toddlers preoccupied. You can try out some of these simple indoor activities for toddlers that are easy to set up and utilize items you probably have lying around the house.
Related Post: 12 Easy Toddler Activities to Keep your Toddler Out of Trouble | No Prep Indoor Activities
Something that has helped me so much especially in terms of getting my blog work done in the mornings with my toddler around is to use a Busy Book.
A Busy Book does just what the name suggests: it keeps your little one super busy! An added bonus is that your little one learns so many new skills too while engaging in activities that involve matching, sorting, tracing and counting.
Check out the Sweetnsour Busy Book – I promise you won’t be disappointed! 🙂
4. Use alternative methods for comfort
I know that one of the main reasons my toddler keeps touching my face is to get comfort. So an idea worth trying is to find them an alternative thing to snuggle up with to replace your face.
This could perhaps be a stuffed animal or a cuddly blanket (also called a lovey). Many children get so attached to their stuffies and loveys that they end up taking it with them everywhere.
This is a great strategy that can help divert your child’s attention away from constantly touching your face.
5. Teach toddler to keep hands clean
One of the things that bothered me the most about my toddler touching my face was the state of her hands.
Sometimes her nails would be long and would cut into my skin when she’d press my face. Other times the nails would be filled with dirt or her hands would be sticky (God knows where those hands had been).
The icing on the cake though would be when she’d stick her hands inside her diaper and then run towards me to grab my face (while I in turn ran for my life of course).
So it would definitely be a good idea to teach your toddler to keep their hands clean. Help them practice washing their hands frequently, especially after playing outdoors and before and after mealtimes.
A superb trick to get toddlers motivated to wash their hands and use the soap is to get a cute soap dispenser like this one. This helps kids get super excited about hand washing.
Also cut their nails frequently. This will help prevent build up of dirt under their nails and also prevent them from scratching you when touching your face.
After all, isn’t it tons more tolerable getting touched by soap scented clean hands rather than by sticky, stinky hands?
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Other post you might enjoy:
Handling a Toddler Who Hates Getting Nails Cut
The Ultimate Guide to Toddler Proofing Your Home – Safety Hacks That Work
15 Best Bath Toys For Toddlers That Are Educational and Fun
5 Insanely Creative Ways To Teach a Toddler to Clean Up | Cleaning With Kids
6 Fascinating Reasons Why Toddlers Draw on Walls (And How You Can Stop Them)
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