Here’s Why Your Baby Is *Always* Sticking Her Tongue Out At You

It’s not like you hate seeing it — your newborn baby is an amazing little person with all kinds of tricks and surprises — but eventually you might start wondering why do babies stick their tongue out all the time? There it is when she’s hungry, and again when she’s finished eating. Sometimes she just rests it between her lips like it’s a totally normal thing to do. Babies have lots of odd-yet-adorable habits, like always trying to eat your face and sleeping like a little roast chicken. Luckily, your baby sticking their tongue out is a totally normal thing for her to do, and eventually she’ll tuck it into her mouth where it belongs after she’s reached a few milestones. But what’s happening right now?

Why do babies stick their tongues out?

To prevent choking when they start solids

Sometimes, babies stick their tongue out to keep themselves from choking. You might find that when you touch your baby’s lips, out comes her tongue in anticipation of feeding time. The presence of this reflex actually indicates that baby isn’t quite ready for solid food yet. Her tongue actually prevents her from choking on substances her body isn’t ready to handle.

“It’s their own body saying, ‘I’m not ready for this, I still need my breast milk or formula.’ With time it should go away and baby will happily take food from a spoon,” says Dr. Jean Moorjani, M.D., board-certified pediatrician at Orlando's Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children.

“When beginning spoon feeding, it is very common for a baby to stick out their tongue and push the food out as they are learning how to retract their tongue to allow the spoon in their mouth,” adds Meghan B. Amerson, certified speech-language pathologist and outpatient speech-language pathology supervisor at Children's of Alabama.

To play with their caregivers

Your baby could also be sticking their tongue out to play with you, either because they know it makes you laugh or because they’re mimicking silly faces you’ve made at them. In studies published in the 1970s in the journal Science, infants as young as 2 and 3 weeks old mimicked researchers when they protruded their tongue, which was cited in a followup study in 2009.

“It’s surprising, but it’s their first way of playing with their parents,” says Moorjani. “It’s the baby’s first way to imitate. It’s so formative in a baby’s brain and they have an expected reaction. It’s a game of prediction and reliability.”

“Typically, babies begin to imitate sticking their tongue out around 6 to 8 months of age,” says Ashley Heinemann, certified speech-language pathologist at Children’s of Alabama. “Depending on the reaction they receive, the baby will repeat the behavior. It is totally normal to engage in motor imitative play with your baby, which teaches turn-taking.”

If your baby is sticking their tongue in and out repeatedly, or you notice baby sticking their tongue out at 9 months or so, chances are they’re just figuring out how to play with their tongue and learning that the people around them react to it, says Dr. Peily Soong, M.D., pediatrician at Children’s of Alabama.

It could be a rooting reflex.

Wondering why your newborn is sticking their tongue out after feeding? It could be part of their rooting reflex, an instinctual behavior that helps them find and latch onto a breast or bottle, Soong says. When they feel something brush their cheek or lips, babies automatically search for a food source, so having a little lunch leftover on their tongue might prompt them to keep looking for more.

“It may be just part of the rooting reflex in that there’s still a little milk in their mouth and they’re having that sensation that something is on their tongue,” he says.

When to call your doctor about your baby sticking their tongue out

“Notify your child’s doctor if they leave their tongue protruded at rest most of the time,” says Amerson. “Genetic differences, like Down Syndrome or Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, may cause tongue protrusion at rest, which can be a sign of low muscle tone. If this is observed, your baby may benefit from an evaluation by a speech-language pathologist.”

“Sometimes babies may have large tongues or small mouths and it’s perfectly healthy,” Moorjani says. “There may be some congenital syndromes if your baby has a bunch of other abnormalities.”

Tongue protrusion in older babies needs to be addressed if it’s preventing your child from eating solid foods or learning to speak. Speech or physical therapy might be in order once your pediatrician is able to rule out any serious conditions in a baby older than 6 months. However, if you have a younger infant and you get a thrill out of how cute that little tongue is, enjoy making all the silly faces you want.

Study referenced:

Jones, S. S. (2009). The development of imitation in infancy. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1528), 2325–2335. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0045

Sources:

Dr. Jean Moorjani, M.D., board-certified pediatrician at Orlando's Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children

Meghan B. Amerson, certified speech-language pathologist and outpatient speech-language pathology supervisor at Children's of Alabama

Ashley Heinemann, certified speech-language pathologist at Children’s of Alabama

Dr. Peily Soong, M.D., pediatrician at Children’s of Alabama