Any suggestions on how to get my son to quit chewing on everything? Day care tells me that he still likes to put rocks in his mouth when they are playing outside, he is constantly being corrected at home for pickiing stuff up off the floor and putting it in his mouth, and last night he was caught chewing on his brothers plugged in phone charger. I have asked the doctor if it's possibel he has an oral fixation, but since he has never exibited any of this at the doctors office, he doesn't think there is anything wrong. I'm really getting worried about his health and safety, and would love some positive feedback on ways to correct this behavior! Thanks, Mommas!
You need to go to another ped who will listen to your concerns. If you don't want to do that, ask the daycare director to write your ped a letter detailing things and telling him that this should not be ignored. I would DEMAND that your son be seen by either a speech therapist who works with oral defensiveness or an OT.
Don't take no for an answer.
Good luck!
I agree with Dawn - you MUST be your childs advocate. If someone isn't listening - find someone who will. I wish I had an answer on how to correct it but I do not. It could be he has sensory sensitivity and this is his way of dealing with it.......
You are right to be concerned for his safety -- both for choking and for possibly being shocked if he chews on cords. Your doctor is either very badly trained or lazy. Please ignore your doctor and get a referral to an occupational therapist who specializes in working with children. Your son may have a sensory processing issue or other issues that manifest themselves in this way.
There may be a lot that occupational and/or other therapies can do to help him with this. My friend's son didn't go as far as yours did with putting every kind of object in his mouth, but it was found by an OT that he could concentrate much better if he was chewing and he ended up with an "individual education plan" that allowed him to chew in class on special objects that OTs can provide just for this. He has outgrown it mostly and OT really has helped him and his family.
I wanted to add, do deal with this starting right now. Your son is in daycare, you mention, so I guess that this fall he starts kindergarten. You do need to start getting this behavior worked on before he goes to kindergarten, because kindergarten teachers do not have time in their busy classrooms to give a lot of attention to these types of issues and to watch one child who might choke at any time. If you get your son started on therapy now, by the time he begins kindergarten, you will know what's going on, whatever that is; you will have some months of experience of therapy with him and can convey to a K teacher what he needs; and you will have an OT backing you up if you need an individual education plan document that requires the school to make any accommodations he needs (like what I mentioned above). Getting in now with a good therapist who has experience with kids this age is important, so go for it. He can be helped!
Wow, sorry to say, but your doctor needs a swift kick in the pants if he is only willing to explore abnormal behaviors that he, himself, witnesses. Seems that he is being lazy. I would press him again--specifically I would learn about sensory seeking behavior and sensory processing disorder, and once you have learned about it, go back to your doctor, armed with knowledge, and ask again. If he resists, be forceful about it and let him know that you KNOW your child, you SEE his behaviors, which at the age of 5, are abnormal (I know this, because my son is also 5 and is also a sensory-seeker), and ask for a referral for an evaluation. If he refuses, bye bye doctor.
My son is 11 and still puts things in his mouth. It has improved (it happens less often) since he has been receiving Occupational Therapy throughthe school. He was diagnosed with a sensory processing disorder last year and this can be one of the symptoms. I am reading the Out of Sync Child and there is a lot of useful information in it. You may not want to read a whole book if it turns out that this is not the problem your child is experiencing, but the earlier you catch on to it (diagnose) the better off you are. We are struggling since it took until he was 11 for anyone to realize the problem & I wasn't familiar with Sensory Processing (thought it had more to do with Autism). Check with the school your son is going to be attending in the fall; they may be able to help also. 314-454-KIDS is a nurse hotline, that you can call and ask them anything relating to kids and they will give you answers and/or resources.
My 5-y/o is also very "mouthy" this way. When he was a baby, he would crawl to the cat's food bowl and eat cat food. X-P I still frequently have to tell him not to "eat" (put his mouth on/lick) shopping carts if he's riding in them. On a regular basis, I will catch him with Legos, marbles, or other small objects in his mouth. I try not to freak out (certainly nothing to make him swallow and choke on it), but I'm also concerned that he *will* accidentally choke on these things, even though he seems to be just holding them in his mouth like some people chew gum or gnaw on a toothpick. And I'm afraid that if I draw attention to it, it will make it worse. I try to make light of it, and get him to laugh and realize it's a not-so-good habit [I say, "You're not a goat!" and we both laugh], but sometimes I wonder if it needs more than that.
Some people have suggested to me that I give him some sort of safe chew toy, but I don't know if that will work -- he seems to like small hard objects (like the aforementioned Legos, marbles, etc.), so a bigger one wouldn't seem to fit the bill. But that's a suggestion.
I'll be reading the other responses as well, to see if some of them may work with him.
