Bit sensitive - 5yr old girl hurting her bits

[Anonforawhile]

Hi,

I hope someone can give me some advice here - my friend swears by this place!

My dd is a few weeks away from being 6. Since she was a baby - in fact when she was learning to crawl - she worked out that pressure on her 'bits' felt nice. Since then...so we're talk 5.5 years...she does it all the time. BUT what I am worried about most is HOW she does it. She does it by kind of rocking on hard things - ie corners of hard chairs, or the rail on her mid-sleeper bed. This leaves her really swollen and sore. In fact we refer to it as 'getting sore'. But I just can't stop her. She does it when she's watching TV, when she's going to sleep, when she wakes up in the morning. She used to do it at nursery, I know, but I don't believe she's ever done it at school. I've tried to tell her its private and she can only do it when she's on her own, but she doesn't seem able to stop. What I am really worried about is that she's going to be doing some damage down there. She has a permanent bruise at the top of her thigh from all the pressure. I've told her if she doesn't stop I'll have to take her to the doctors, but now I'm worried as that seems to be freaking her out, and I don't want her to grow up with 'issues'...!

Any advice gratefully received!!

T.

My little girl also used to do this, she called it "doing her tickle" and she did it constantly and the way she did was just laying down on the floor and just moving up and down the floor. At the time it was firstly amusing but then became HIGHLY EMBARASSING as she didn't care where she was when she did because, of course to her it was just something that felt nice. I had a word with the Health Visitor and she just told me to not make a fuss about it and get her to do something because most of the time its a sign of boredom.

But then one day she just stopped doing it altogether and has never done it since, I think its the same as boys playing with there bits (which my DS often does) but with boys it just doesn't seem as embarrassing as girls doing it.

Am sure she will grow out of it, try not to worry.

just ignore it!

Distract her with something else when you see her doing that. Dont make issue out of it and dont worry. She will soon outgrow it.

Thanks everyone. Seems its not as unusual as I thought...I found a few other recent threads on the same subject once I'd posted mine. Whoops. I did say I was new here, right!?
I am still worried it might do some long term damage though. She is using hard things, not cushions... and it is her favourite thing to do - if I let her she'd watch TV and do it all her waking hours, I think!