Frequent hand squeezing - should I worry?

About a month or so ago Colin started squeezing his hands a LOT and for no reason. He usually doesn't ball them up or clinch hard, but just closes and opens his hands a lot. Sometimes he does it while he is upset, but often times he does it when he is content too. His brother never does this. We had an appointment with a pediatric development specialist a couple of weeks ago, and he did it some there too which we pointed out to them. They said they didn't see a problem with it and they didn't seem concerned. But it seems really weird to us. Hopefully it is just something he will grow out of, but I am curious if anybody else here has LOs who had/have this habit and when they grew out of it? Thanks!

I'll try to take a video of him later today doing it and post it, if that helps.

 

Sounds to me like he's discovered he actually controls his hands. He's testing to see if when he wants it to, will it still open and close. It's like he suddenly realized that he makes it do that! I don't think it's a problem. And when he starts concentrating on a new talent, he'll likely stop doing this one so often!

 

Thanks Danibell! I hope you are right. It looks like more a "nervous twitch" or something along those lines, but I have heard about babies repeatedly doing something when they make new discoveries now that you mention it. I would have thought he would have gotten bored with the whole open/close hand thing by now, but maybe not

 

I agree with Danibell. I think its just something he's concentrating on right now. My DD does it while her twin rarely does. I notice she also has progressed to squeezing her plush toys as well. I think she's excited about the control she has figured out. Her facial expression is so cute when she does it that I've never thought of it as anything but cute.

 

I just remembered that my dd twin started doing that, and now she does that to wave, opens and closes her hands! My ds twin never did that, and to wave he closes his hand into a fist and waves his wrist up and down! :lol:

 

Hi - one of my daughters did exactly the same thing! She then moved on to hand "wringing", which she did constantly for a good month or so. My next door neighbour is a psychiatrist & she dubbed her the "generalized anxiey girl". My DH & I were absolutely beside ourselves about it, but she grew out of it - I agree with other posters, I think it is very much when they are discovering their own body, & their hands in particular. My DH is a geneticist, & he was totally freaked out over the whole hand clenching, then wringing episodes - but, as with most things we worry ourselves sick over, it turned out to be nothing!

hope this helps!