Still dribbling at nearly 4?

[Snowflaked]

DS is still dribbling lots and he is nearly 4. All the other children I know his age have stopped this long ago. Even nursery are commenting on it. Is there anything I can to to encourage him to stop? Should I be worried about it?

DD doesn't dribble nearly so much, and when she does its only when a tooth is coming through (17 months)

When DS was 2-3 he dribbled so much I had to give him a spare t-shirt to take to nursery! Nursery staff said he'd grow out of it but his SALT gave me a list of things to do to reduce it. It really worked, here are the things I can remember:

• using a drinking straw a few times a day to suck up drinks (also to blow bubbles in drinks like milk to make them frothy!)
• play with blowing bubbles
• give him spaghetti to eat, leaving it long and encourage him to suck it up
• use a ping pong ball (or balled up paper) to use as mini football and use straws to blow the ball
• to wipe up dribble use a tissue and wipe up from the bottom of his chin telling him to "suck up your dribble".

I'm sure there were more but you can get the gist!

My dc did this. I would suggest:

1. see an ENT specialist - could be adenoids forcing mouth breathing (my son needed his out)
2. thumb sucking - if doing this try to stop. My dc had overbite - which exacerbated the above

Have to say at 5 this is much better

Ds is 3 and does this too, especially when chatting a lot.

SALT said it can be a poor mouth seal, so he will grow out of it and not an issue.

His SALT is for sound delay and disorder after glue ear made him deaf for some time.

The straw idea is interesting - I guess it strengthens the muscles that seal the mouth area, must give him more straws!