nose blowing

[harrieddave]

Dear all,

I'm a first time poster and I'd really appreciate any advice you could offer.

My five year old is unable to blow his nose... Mum and I have tried all manner of ways to encourage him to exhale through his nose into a hanky, but to no avail. Instead, he continually inhales (noisily)through his nose, which doesn't really help when it's blocked.

We've tried getting him to breathe in and out through his nose when he doesn't have a cold (which he can do), but the blowing part utterly evades him...

A strange first post, I guess, but I'd love to hear what others think.

with all best,

Hi harrieddave,

Welcome to MN.

My four-year-old struggles with it too. One recent thing that has helped was (tip from a friend), screwing up little tiny bits of tissue paper, putting them on a low table at the edge and asking him to see how far he could blow them across the table while keeping his mouth closed.

He is gradually getting it now.

Hi Jimmy - that's an inspired idea! - thank you so much. I'll try it out tomorrow and see how we get on...

very best wishes.

It probably sounds disgusting but we got our DS to try and play a recorder with his nose. I think the balls of tissue paper are a better idea though and might try that as he seems to lose the knack between colds. Perhaps I should be posting re his memory...

DD really struggled to blow into the hanky. We found that encouraging her to blow the snot out and then mopping it up worked. Our biggest problem then was her sucking the twin trails of mucous into her mouth.

HappySeven: noseblowing and musical instruction in one move - I like it! Thank you!

kreecherlivesupstairs: I'll give this a shot, too. DS is obsessed with germs and bacteria at the moment so 'seeing' one tangible source of them might be of interest to him... Thank you.