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How do newborn babies learn to suck?

Sucking is a newborn's reflexive response to any nipple-shaped object that brushes the baby's cheek or lips. Essential to life, this sucking reflex enables infants to take in nourishment. Without this reflex, babies would starve.

Why do babies suck on thumbs, fingers, and pacifiers as these do not give forth milk or anything nutritional?

Sucking comforts an irritable infant, creating a sense of calm and well-being. Pediatricians at Denver's Children's Hospital have monitored infants' breathing, heart rate, digestion, and frequency of crying to understand how these activities are altered by sucking. Irrespective of whether babies prefer a pacifier, finger, or thumb to suck, the action of rhythmic sucking optimizes an infant's breathing and heart rate. Because of this soothing effect, sucking helps a hungry infant wait to be fed, cuts down on fussing when infants are tired, and decreases the time infants spend crying.

Does sucking affect infants' sleep habits?

Thumb and finger sucking babies tend to sleep longer and more soundly than non-sucking infants, apparently because sucking eases the transition from wakefulness to sleep. Infants generally awaken often. Their normal nighttime sleep pattern involves alteration of several sleep hours and then an awake period before sleep is again resumed. Rhythmic sucking lulls them back to sleep.

Do sucking habits take on new functions as infants grow?

During their first three to six months, healthy babies develop the ability to bring their hands to their mouths. To practice this skill, they bring everything within grasp to their mouths - food, toys, and clothing, aw well as fingers and thumbs. Later in the first year, teething may further increase babies' interest in sucking and chewing. Thumbs provide soft "teethers" for tender gums as well as physiological calming.