Five year old still puts everything in his mouth!

[LittleMissMeUK]

Hi guys,

My son is five in November and developmentally he's doing really well.

For some reason he has a habit of putting everything in his mouth; he does it very absentmindedly, but if he grabs something, chances are he'll be putting it in his mouth at some point. It wouldn't be much of an issue if it was something like chunky lego or a book or something, but it's things like batteries (he chewed through two whilst I was having a bath - so I spent the evening conversing with NHS Direct - fun!) and tonight I caught him making a start on a charger lead that was plugged in. I'm doing my very best to move things out of the way, and ensure access to anything dangerous is inaccessible, but it's really hard as we live in an accessible flat, so literally everything is within his reach.

I have no idea why he does it - I've looked for patterns and it doesn't seem to occur more or less when he's over/under stimulated, he just puts stuff in his mouth all the time.

Any thoughts/suggestions/ideas would be appreciated. I'm wondering if I should take him to the Doctor, but I don't really know what they could do?

It is a bit of an odd one. Has his teacher mentioned anything?

Thanks for your reply. He doesn't start school until September but they haven't mentioned anything at nursery.

Not sure what to advise really as chewing through life chargers can potentionally be dangerous I imagine. Could you give him something to fiddle with a chew on that would be more acceptable? I’d maybe mention it to the Dr too.

I was thinking of getting him a teething toy, although it feels a bit ridiculous for a five year old, but it's definitely preferable to the alternative. It's a weird one, isn't it?

Thanks so much for reply.

You can get chewing toys for older children if you don’t want to get him a teething toy designed for babies, like this one. There’s lots of different kinds and you can get chewable pencil toppers too which might help when he starts school

That looks great, thank you! I'm trying to work out whether it might encourage it though - I'm still trying to get a blanket ban across the whole thing, but we'll see :) Thanks so much.