If your baby can not effectively communicate, they use unusual gesture types. These gestures express many of the daily needs and ideas of the parents.

Sometimes those are signs of confusion or worry. It is a very common phenomenon for babies to rub their feet together in general.

Babies try to fulfill their sensory needs by sensing their body parts. So rubbing feet may be sensory experiencing small kids most of the time.

Kids are playful all the time since their birth. Rubbing feet can be considered a play activity. They try to engage with the parents by doing this.

In another way, babies need to self-soothe themselves. So they rub their feet together as a self-soothing mechanism in their day-to-day life.

Sometimes continuous rubbing of feet may be a sign of discomfort. Here they use their body movement types and other body language as a communicative method.

The parent should observe closely their baby to identify all those. Your baby is a rapid learner.

What do you think, if I say that this rubbing foot is a part of the learning process of your kid? As you see them grow and accomplish their milestones with time, they do weird things and it is very common for babies.

So I suggest that rubbing their feet together is one of the weird things.

What reasons does my baby rub her feet together?

Babies rub their feet together due to many reasons. We should observe all these behavior types with clear observation skills toward the child.

Almost all this activity is a normal body movement in your kid’s day-to-day life. Your baby is the most curious person you ever had.

He/she wishes to learn everything very quickly in their own way. They try to explore their surrounding environment in many ways.

First, they try to explore their body parts by themselves. They try to how your body parts works and function.

Babies start kicking with their lower limbs first here are a few reasons why babies rub their feet together;

Babies need more sensory stimulation in early life so they try to figure out various senses.

Your baby reads the world by responding to the various sensory stimulations from the external world. It is the easiest and most common way for babies to use their body parts.

They kick, and they rub them together to gain the tactile sensation. They get sensory experiences and explore their body by doing these repetitive actions.

Pediatricians and most parents identified that rubbing feet together is the common way of getting that kind of sensory experience.

Rubbing feet as a part of play activity

In the early life of your babies, they are not mobile. But they have a desire of playing and engaging activities. Sometimes they need to convert their parent’s attention toward them.

So they were concerned about a few physical activities. They choose to rub their feet together as a play activity.

At this point, the primary intention of your infant is to crawl and roll over as a physical movement. They start by rubbing their feet to initiate many motor movements.

Parents should observe their little ones closely every day and try to understand their basic desires and the way they show their desires to do.

Babies need to self-soothe themselves

Babies do many self-soothing behaviors in early life. It is different from baby to baby. Your close observation of your baby identifies these many soothing behaviors.

They perform these soothing activities while breastfeeding sometimes. They rub their feet on mom’s tummy or try to rub their ear constantly.

Soon these self-soothe behaviors turn into habits.

Signs and symptoms causing excessive rubbing of your infant’s feet

Your little infant is too small to communicate the daily problems they face. So they cry to express their all needs and discomforts.

So rubbing their feet is one of that communication channels. A happy baby rubbing his feet you need not worry about that.

It is a kind of baby play alone most of the time. But rubbing the feet while crying is a sign of discomfort that they are not well.

In this situation, you need to know what signs and symptoms do they show to get an idea about them.

A few signs and symptoms are as follows.

• Scratches of wounds
• Redness
• Fever
• Pain
• Irritability and awaking for long hours
• Arching back
• Refusing to feed
• Skin dryness especially ankles areas.

Eczema indicates the following things

This indicates that the baby has eczema causing an extreme tickling sensation. Mostly this happens in the ankles and you need to observe this while the baby is rubbing their ankles a lot.

If you see wounds due to intense rubbing, you need to think of medical attention to that. Think about cutting toenails and apply some moisturizing ointment and consult your doctor as well.

Signs of having pain

If your kid is arching their back too frequently, that may be a sign of pain. If prolonged rubbing with crying is commonly an indication of fever and you can measure their body temperature and go for proper medications.

Final thoughts

Babies tend to rub their feet due to multiple reasons. So they do it as a normal part of their play activity. Also, little kids are very exploitative and they always try to explore new things.

So they do this rubbing activity as an exploration of their body parts and the surrounding world.

Also, this behavior is a major soothing mechanism in an infant’s life. Most infants try to self-soothe by rubbing their feet together most of the time.

Rubbing feet in a happy mood is not a big thing to concern. But if your baby is trying to rub their feet with a crying face, it is an indication of another thing such as discomfort, hunger, pain, fever, etc.

So need to get the relevant response in such instances. In final words, I wish to say that if you notice this rubbing of the feet is a communication channel for your baby.

They are trying to communicate with you. It is your duty to identify their emotions and respond ideally.