Five year old chewing clothes

[MrsCF]

Has anyone got any tips on how to stop my DS chewing his nails and clothes. He has chewed most of his nails off and is now making holes in his clothes. He has gone through a jumper and his coat so far, I am hoping I can stop it before he goes through more.

[OutragedFromLeeds]

My DC2 and DC3 did this. The only tip I've got to stop it is to treat it like any unwanted behaviour and explain why we don't do that, what the consequences will be if it carries on and then follow through with it. And constantly saying 'stop chewing your sleeves!'.

For us;

'we don't chew our clothes because they get holes in and then we have to buy new ones and that's a waste of money/Grandma bought you that jumper and you've ruined it by chewing a hole in the sleeve' etc.

'If I see any holes chewed in this jumper I will be taking your pocket money/Christmas money/sweet money to buy a new one'.

'There is a hole in this new school jumper. Go and get £10 out of your money box and we'll go and buy a new school jumper'.

[Medoc]

Is it anxiety? Does he have any outlets for his worries? How are his communication skills? 5yo boys are not always the best at telling us what is bothering them

[Ellie8Mae]

Hi. We have a chew buddy which DS wears under his jumper at school. Teacher aware. He used to give it a good work out but this has lessened over time. So has the nail biting. He can chew anything and everything so thought it best to get something safe to chew on until this phase has passed.

[Dulra]

My dd1 (7) used to do this as well and it was so frustrating when she was constantly wrecking her clothes everything had to be binned and I couldn't hand anything down to her sisters. She then stopped doing it for years but in the past few weeks has started to do it again. I am wondering is it teeth related? she has lost a lot of her baby teeth in the past couple of months and her adult teeth are breaking through. It is the only reason I can think of to make her start doing it again

[Allthelittlefoxes]

DS1 did this when he was 4-5 (now 6)
As well as explaining why I didn't want him to do it, I told him to stop every time I saw him at it, and also got him a 'chew necklace' type thing to wear at home / in the car (not allowed at school) to give him something to deflect onto. He said his teeth felt funny (gradually baby teeth starting to get pushed out I guess) and that chewing made them feel better... I think it was called 'chewelery' and it saved a fair few jumpers! He stopped doing it of his own accord about 6 months after he started.