Her dirty habits are driving me crazy!!

[Blossom4538]

Hi all,

I’m struggling a little with our girl’s (age7) hygiene and habits. She’s always fiddling and has her fingers somewhere on her body and it drives me mad! It gets me down. How can I get her to stop?

At the end of her birthday party, we were saying goodbye to her friend and her Mum, and she started saying how sweaty she was, put her hand under her armpit and shoved it right in my face to smell!

Today, she’s had her fingers everywhere and always in her mouth. She touches herself and loves the smell (sorry tmi). She even tries to get me to smell, horrible!

What’s causing all this behaviour? Is it sensory? Or self soothing? I appreciate we need to let her have her comforts when she needs it but all this type of behaviour is grossing me out a little and I’m concerned about her getting germs/infections.

Have you thought about seeing someone to address your anxiety/revulsion about this? It comes across as quite extreme.

You can patiently and repeatedly explain to your DD that touching yourself inside your underwear is for when you’re in private only. But I’m not sure what’s so wrong about armpits or other parts of her body.

It just because it’s constant! All day yesterday 🤣 I’m not really revulsed by it but it can be non-stop and has been for a long time. In her bottom, bits and then mouth or sniffing, belly button, poking objects in her belly button, turning it inside out and making it really sore, tying knots in her hair, fingers in her nose and smearing it down her face into her mouth, smelling everything, trying to poke things in her ears. I’m overly anxious over it, I think it was just the way my original post was worded. It just got me down yesterday as it was literally all day and I can see her doing it more. 😬😆

Maybe OT could help?

You've probably already tried distracting her with something else? Other than that I'm not sure.

Maybe discuss with GP?

We have similar with DS who has ASD. Always has his hand in his pants then sniffing it. We think it is sensory and reassuring for him however yuck it seems to us. We are trying to gently discourage it but it is important to him feeling secure when he is stressed so don't want to make to much of an issue of it.