Biting at nursery

[PinkSyCo]

Himself that is, not other children (luckily). Picked my 2.5 year old grandson up from nursery yesterday and was told he’d had a lovely time but he’d been biting his knuckles when excited. His knuckles were bright red with his teeth marks still in them. He continued to bite himself occasionally throughout the afternoon at home. He is autistic and was wondering if anyone could advise me on whether this is some kind of stim and if there are any good alternatives out there for him to chow down on. I had a quick look last night and came across some necklaces and bracelets, but not sure how safe they would be considering he’s biting so hard.

The necklaces and bracelets won't hurt him, they are not rock hard. Be prepared for him to prefer biting himself though. DS has all manner of chewy things and still bites himself a lot of the time, even when redirected to a chewy.

Hes getting sensory feedback from the pain of biting himself so anytging else you substitute with needs to give him some kind of sensory feedback too e.g. crunchy cold carrots etc. Does he have a Occupational Therapiat trained in sensory integration? Ive found ours a lifesaver with ideas for these type of things.

Oh that’s interesting. It never even crossed my mind that he was getting something out of the pain of biting! He’s not been officially diagnosed yet, so the only help he gets is a bit of speech therapy at nursery, so everytime he does something new like this we don’t really know who to ask.