Seeking Advice...my 3Yr Old Is Getting It on with Her Blanket!!!!!!

When my son was 3, I got a call from his pre-school saying he had exposed himself and was touching himself during naptime. They had a real problem with it, as you can imagine. At that age, they're completely unaware of the sexual nature of such things - he just knew it felt good...totally innocent. When I brought him home later, I told him that it's his body and he had a right to touch it, BUT if he wanted to touch his private parts (and we talked a bit about that), he needed to make sure it was in the privacy of his own room and NOWHERE ELSE because it's not appropriate, like farting or spitting. Now he's 10 and it's never been a problem since. I think, like your daughter said, it feels good and she sees nothing wrong with it. Tread lightly here - you don't want to give your daughter a complex and make her think there's something to be ashamed of about her body (unless, of course, you do believe it to be wrong and shameful - some people do and that's their right). Good luck!

She coul dhave a UTI in which she is seeking comfort/ relief from.

Your subject line is funny - immediately got my attention!:) I had a similar issue with my 6 y.o. son when he was 3 - he was touching himself occasionally, including in front of others. The advice our pediatrician gave was to just tell him that it's not polite to touch private parts in front of other people and if he wanted to do that he needed to go to his room. We were advised not to say anything negative about the "practice" otherwise as that could lead to feelings of shame or negative body image. So, I would imagine that as long as she's doing this in private you can just ignore it. My son stopped doing it by the time he was 4.

Good luck!

Hi-
There is nothing wrong with what she is doing. You do not want to be uptight about it and make her ashamed of touching herself. You can tell her that she is only to do it in the privacy of her own room when she is alone, and that it is not appropriate when others are around (i.e. at school during naptime). I can see it being embarrassing...but she is not going to hurt herself!

You are not alone. My 2.5 year-old does this same thing occasionally. I just started ignoring it and it seems to have helped to not draw attention to it as long as it is only in her room. I was really freaked out and embarassed by it, but my pediatrician told me it is normal. Hope this helps.

I listen to Dr. Drew religiously, and from what he says; when young children self-stimulate themselves like that it can usually mean they are doing it because there's a lot of chaos going on in their lives/homes so they take themselves away from that by giving themselves some pleasure. It can also be from seeing things they shouldn't see, or even by being sexually abused. In most cases they will outgrow it.
A friend of mine's son was doing weird things like that, and after hearing some of the stuff Dr. Drew said, it made sense as to why he was doing that, there is a lot of chaos in their home, their M. was always yelling and has her kids in WAY to many activities which is running them ragged, so he was trying to take himself away from all that and self stimulating himself.