2 year old screws up his ear

[capsule99]

Hi, my little boy has always found comfort by sucking his thumb and twiddling with his ears. However, he has constantly started fiddling with his ears when he's tired or when he's reading with us or resting etc.

He folds the cup of his ear over and then folds the top of the ear downwards over it. It's hard to describe but his ear basically ends up like a scrunched up ball! He keeps it like this and when he stops, his ear springs back into shape. But I'm concerned the more he does this as he gets older, it might end up deforming the shape of his beautiful little ears.

i try to keep his hands busy with other things but he won't have it. He almost thinks of it as game now, when i try to take his hands away from his ears, he just starts immediately twiddling again.

Obviously his ears are still very soft and 'foldable' but once the cartilage starts to form, i don't want him to do some damage!

Thanks for any advice. xx

My older son did the same throughout his childhood. His father was concerned, as you are, that he might do some damage to his ear. So if we noticed him doing it we would ask him not to.
He is 28 now and still folds up his ear - it's his party trick. His ears are not at all odd looking.

Thank you so much, that's reassuring. Guess it's just a weird little thing he does! x

Have you found any relevant info on why he does this? My son has also always done it for comfort. He grabs at anybody’s ears actually, and now at 2yrs old I’m just wondering if there is anything else to it?

My DS always does this - he can tuck his outer ear into his inner ear, forgets about it and wonders around with his ears tucked in! It's very weird but almost like he has no gristle in his ears! He is 9 now and has always done it - luckily, his ears don't stick out! He thinks of it as his party trick, too!

Hi, original poster here! Just to say my little boy is 4.5 now and when he stopped sucking his thumb at 3 years old, he stopped doing the ear folding thing too. Must've been a weird combination thing. His ears are absolutely fine since he stopped. x

Thanks for the update. Just found this thread as my almost 2 year old does this all the time.