Asd & nail biting

[chocnomore]

Dd (5, autism) has been biting her nails for a while but it gets worse & worse.

she now bites them until they bleed really badly .

is this possibly a sensory thing?

an ideas what to try?

thanks polter. will give them a go.

Dd 4 ASD bites her nails, she bites her toe nails aswell and bit all the skin around her big toe last week so that it ended up really sore and I had to cover it with a plaster for a week. I think it's a sensory thing with dd, she is always sensory seeking, especially with putting everything in her mouth.
I know you can get something like nailvarnish you paint on nails which tastes really horrible (my mum used this on me when I was about 10yo and started biting my nails) but its awful. It worked, I never bit my nails again and I've thought it could be an option when dd is older if it was a really bad problem but not sure if suitable for DC with ASD, depends how your DC would react to that. It tastes really horrible and everything else you eat all day tastes of it, I still remember it as it was so bad!

I've never had sensory issues, nail biting was just a bad habit for me so I guess it's different from breaking a habit as sensory issues are still there. Dd is terrible for putting everything in her mouth and i find it hard to distract or persuade her to an alternative that she is allowed to have like chewellery. She actually eats inedible things as well as just chewing.

DS2 chews his to bleeding stumps :( it's definitely sensory as he also chews everything else.. clothes, hoodie ties and pencils.
he has a pencil between each of the fingers of his left hand at all times and can chew new ones to a stump in a week.. how much he swallows I hate to think!
But..having them to chew helps his fingers a little bit. It's defo worth trying any chewy you can think of!

I am a terrible chewer of nails and the thing that replaces it best is the circle bits that you take off the milk containers when you take the lid off. My ExBF used to hang them on a hook in the kitchen for me. Free and fantastic!

And I'm really looking forward to poppy season because those plastic poppy stems are BRILLIANT to chew....

Undiagnosed, moi?

Dd3 is a chewer too not so much her nails but clothing and other stuff.

We have recently found drinking straws to be a good replacement.

We tried chewellry but it was too soft for her and she didnt bother with it.

The OT's recently suggested chewing gum which I was a bit at and also raw carrots which she loves so we are trialling those at homework times when she usually chews her pen tops.