teaching my 4 year old DS to blow his nose

[mckenzie]

I'm trying to teach my ds to blow his nose but with zero success. Any tips please very gratefully received.
He was very late to get the hang of drinking through a straw and still is unable to blow out the candles on his birthday cake so it could be a long road to success

[fuzzywuzzy]

Apparantly blowing your nose is the hardest thing to learn...my brother at the grand old age of 7 got something stuck up his nose (as children do), and everytime my mother told him to blow his nose he'd sniff it up.
Mother was hysterical thinking he'd die...he didn't....

And ermmm sorry nothing constructive to add.

[Salsa]

My ds is 4 and he can't blow his nose. I just tell him to pick the big green ones out himself

[jabberwocky]

Have you tried blowing rather forcefully through your own nose in front of him? It's hard I think for some kids to get the hang of it since they generally only hear what you are doing from behind a tissue. That seemed to do the trick for ds. It was really nice the last time he had a cold to just hold up a tissue and say Blow!

[tuppenceworth]

For some bizarre reason my ds is 2.3 years and can blow his nose. I just used a tissue in front of him and he seemed to get the hang of it straight away.

Sorry it's not much help.

[mckenzie]

thanks for the replies. Guess I'll just have to keep trying.

[mandylifeboats]

Hate to be thhe bearer of bad news but my DS is 11 and still can't do it effectively!!

[Littlefish]

This is going to sound really disgusting, but have you got a recorder? (as in a whistle type thing). If you put the recorder just on the edge of your ds's nostril, he will be able to hear a sound if he blows out through his nostril. You will probably have to demonstrate, so practise first!

You could try combining this with Kama's idea about closing one nostril and see how that works.

Sorry, it sounds really revolting, but it has worked with various children I have taught. (I always got their parents to do it obviously!!)

[tillykins]

tape his mouth shut?

I would settle for persuading my 2 and a bit year old to
a) hand over mouth when coughing
b) not announce the presence of "candles" by running around shouting "snot snot snot" at the top of his lungs

[Clary]

This is interesting.
My ds1 is 6.5 and is not really very good at this at all. Tends still to blow through his mouth and then sniff!
He has some ENT issues (intermittent glue ear for one) and I think there is a connection. In fact I mentioned once at a paed apt that he couldn?t blow his nose very well and the doc says, oh, that?s a learned skill usually acquired by 2.5! (True enough, ds2 was 18 mo when he mastered it).
So Mckenzie, no great advice but keep practising, use reward stickers and star charts as needed, and yes, things liek bubble blowing and blowing out candles are good to try.
I also have a theory that this is what has held ds1 back in swimming - he finds it quite hard to blwo out underwater and then take a breath in the air. Almost as if it?s a co-ordination issue.

[UCM]

My mates DD has this problem and I have been trying to get her to blow on my hand via her mouth, then blowing on her hand via my nose, but she found it disgusting.

I think that a 'Paddys Hanky' is a good tool. (before you old tinkers start I am one), blowing your nose into toilet/bowl/street (!!!) by shutting one nostril with your finger and clearing your nasal passage of debris, there and then by blowing profusely.

[7777777]

this will sound gross but my mum taught my now ds at 4 (hes now 11) to blow his nose using a balloon!basically she made a laugh of it and told him to blow the balloon up, obviously he couldnt but it did work.