Almost 4 and has developed a nervous twitch in his nose - a temporary phase or a sign of something else ?

[herbgarden]

My DS is 4 in July - he's just developed a nervous habit of scrunching up his nose as if something's annoying him inside and also opening his mouth wide as if to crack his jaw. We've just been away on holiday for 2 weeks and I noticed it becoming more of a habit over that period . He's gone back to nursery today and I mentioned it quietly to them to see if they thought it had become more obvious and his keyworker. when I went to get him tonight, said she noticed it too.

He is an odd mix of being quite sensitive and unsure of himself but also confident and outgoing making friends easily. He starts school in September and we've a lot going on at the moment so maybe it has something to do with that. His keyworker said they had a little girl who went through a phase of blinking a lot for a while and then she just stopped...

I'd be interested to hear if your lo's have developed any odd temporary habits. By the way, at the moment we're just ignoring it but as it's happening more, it's made me wonder if he's feeling ok in himself IYSWIM....He went through a phase of wanting to go for a wee every 10 minutes last year so perhaps this is a similar thing...

My DS (just 4) developed an eye blinking thing around our house move at Christmas. After things settled down it went. Its started again, since last Wednesday and his 1st settling session in school. So I'm assuming this is related to uncertainity and I'm hoping that once in school and happy and settled it will go again.

That's interesting...my DS's weeing thing started just before he started pre-school last September and then really settled down after a month. The latest thing may be to do with starting school in September - he knows he's going and we have a settling in day a week tomorrow which he also knows about and whilst he is quite excited, I know he's also very very nervous about it all particularly of the "big children" as he refers to them...

DS1 seems to develop these habits too.

We've had;
the mouth opening thing that you describe
finger nail biting
pulling his collar
blinking
snorting

thankfully not at the same time, although at one point it did seem that if I told him to sit on his hands something else would twitch.

I always mention it, in the hope that if it's a conscious thing he might be able to stop, but that doesn't help.

The doctor says it starts probably as a genuine thing, then develops into a habit.

Seems to last about a month, then for some reason something else will start up.

So I don't have an answer, the doctor says to ignore it, but I find that hard to do

I know what you mean. I have asked him if he has something up his nose which is annoying him...he's not a nose picker. Invariably I can get him to have a good blow and get a fairly large bogey out of each nostril but still the funny habit continues

My daughter started stretching her neck and doing a wierd cough thing when she was 4.

She's 19 today and still does it in times of stress. She's always known she's doing it but can't stop herself and us mentioning it makes it worse for her because she says the more you think about not doing it the more it happens.

So try to ignore, it will most probably pass.

My dd started twitching her head similar age, it really worried me but she gradually grew out of it, it was as though it was just a habit she'd picked up.