Over mouthing in a three year old

[luciole15]

Does anyone have similar experience or have any helpful info regarding three year over-mouthing.

He's in his fourth week at pre-school. The teacher has said, in a very brief conversation, that he is inclined to put things in his mouth. They wondered whether he should have something specifically to chew at school. They mentioned the term 'sensory seeking' and also said that they thought his current obsession with blowing raspberries was part of it.

He doesn't do the mouthing much at home. (It would drive me up the wall if he was constantly doing it!) Seems to be only in school so I don't really know the extent that he's doing it. He did mouth things till quite a late stage but I thought he'd stopped completely. Simply telling him to stop seemed pretty effective. If he's very tired he might do it. For example, last night on the way home he wanted to rest his head on his scooter handlebars, with is mouth open, so touching the metal. Sometimes I think he does it when he's hungry. For example just now he put a plastic toy in his mouth but I've redirected him to eat his cereal instead.

The blowing raspberries things to me seems to be just part of him having fun. He spent one morning at home communicating by blowing raspberries rather than talking, but you could see he was having fun doing it and it was just a one off. He will arrive at the school gates and go up to a group of children and blow raspberries, but that seems to be for fun too, maybe attention seeking or playing the clown, but not random. On occasion, he'll do it defiantly and he's also overly keen on spitting.

We've had a huge problem with biting which has been very stressful. At two years he did it completely randomly for three months and I had to helicopter. He then didn't do it at all for about five months, had a few goes, but they were all provoked incidents. Again it stopped, but it started again at three years and was easily controlled by the setting he was in. As far as I know he hasn't done it in his current pre-school, but I have seen him do it when he's been over-excited and also when scrapping with peers.

I think it's a comfort thing. He's not sucking clothes, I think it's just fingers or small toys. He has become quite clingy to me though recently. Away from school, if we're not in the playground or out and about he wants to snuggle up on the sofa with me. He seems quite tired and doesn't want to snuggle so much with Daddy.

Otherwise he's very bright, articulate, funny and loving. He's generally confident for his age, is desperate to make friends. He did tend to get a bit in other children's faces when meeting them a while back, but again, we've passed that phase I think, and he seems perfectly able to interact with his peers. He does like lots of hugging with peers and hand holding.

Is this linked to a condition? Does it need further investigation? Would be grateful for any help. I've tried trawling through the internet and have come across 'Sensory Processing Disorder' but not much else.