Sand eating 2 year old

[floraflora]

Why, oh why, oh why does my 2 year old (birthday yesterday) insist on eating sand at every available opportunity? It makes me feel sick watching him. I've tried punishing him by taking him out of sand pit / off beach and I've tried just ignoring it, but he still shovels it in (literally using his spade as a spoon). I'd be more laid back about it if it didn't give him such a sore bottom.
Thoughts please?

Best to avoid a pebbly beach then. Ouch!!

ds1 also 2 currently eats sand too...and stones (which i have found in his nappy the next day) and sticks and crayons and tissues.......

lets hope it passes before their 3rd birthday ;)

But why do some kids do it? Does he need more roughage (joke!)?

glad its not just my dd that does it. tis a very strange habit!

My Ds is the sand eating champion. He started on his first visit to the beach about 1 years old and is stil going strong at 3, but then he also eats, stones and drinks pool water and pennies and paper and generally anything he can get his hands on....sigh.

hehe he wins! my dd eats sand and drinks pool and bath water. but touch wood hasnt eaten anything else unusual yet!

I can cope with him drinking the bath water etc and he certainly always swallows lots when he is swimming, but that crunchy grittiness is just revolting.
Was hoping someone might have a rational / scientific explanation for it????

Gos, hope he isn't still doing it next summer at 3 yrs old...

Bumping in hope of scientific explanation...!!!

does he do this too?

Good job we don't have a cat, then!

DS1 was like this. I remember him eating loads of sand on holiday one day (ooohh those nappies!!) and then we moved to a non-sand beach amd he ate the pebbles instead. And mud, gravel, anything really. It went eventually, but he still will take a mouthful of sand while rolling around on the beach. Yuk.
There is a medical term for when you eat non-food items - it was mentioned to us by the paediatrician - its called "pica" - google it and you'll find out more, but they don't diagnose it for the under 2s as its completely normal behaviour for them to eat sand etc.

Thanks dippica interesting, I'll have a look...

DD2 did this last year (she's 2 in August)

The contents of her nappy after a sand-pit excursion were like ballast... we could have hired her out as a brickie's mate

My ds also ate all sorts of non food items - sand, stones, crayons, loved anything metallic. We were concerned because he was still doing this after age three so we were referred to a paediatrician. Blood tests showed that he was deficient in iron with low ferritin levels. Regular doses of iron medicine have sorted the problem - since ferritin levels have returned to normal range there have been no further problems.

Interesting about the iron deficiency - I am a great believer that they instinctively know what they need in terms of diet - DS came home from shopping trip with daddy yesterday with the moth-eaten looking remains of an orange pepper - he'd eaten 90 per cent of it - seeds and all! Yep, interesting nappy this morning - especially when combined with all that ballast-like sand! Not sure what nutrient he was needing though...

My 18 month old shovels sand in and bath water and stones and felt tip ends and wax crayon chunks. I am not sure weather to just ignore it...?