nearly 7yo EATING STUFF - am at the end of my effing tether!!!

[Greensleeves]

my ds1 will be 7 in September

he's always been a bugger for putting things in his mouth but I thought he would grow out of it

He eats his clothes - his coats always look tatty long before they are actually worn out because he chews the front bit constantly

ditto sleeves

also other stuff - it is driving me round the twist

during the course of yesterday and today I have caught him eating:

clod of earth with grass garnish
coin found on street
lump of sellotape
felt tip pen
a stone
paper

Does anyone have any advice, because as things stand I am planning to sew his gob shut and stick a tube up his nose!

forgot to mention he has Aspergers

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Is it the eating or the chewing? I.e. Pica or just likes to chew. You can get chewy tubes from ebay which are v good if he just likes to chew.

with mud/grass/bits of clothes he will actually eat them, the rest I'm not sure as I only know he's doing it if I catch him with something in there, and then I take it off him

chewy tubes!! haven't heard of those - will go look

thanks

Hi Greensleeves

Thought we might try the chewy tubes as well. Ds2 (asd) has impulses and would be a devil for sucking/chewing. We were out at the weekend and he picked up a water bottle left lying on the ground, opened it and finished off whatever was inside it. God how revolting - just have to continually reinforce, etc.

when dd1 went through a phase of chewing stuff (clothes, odds and ends - worst bit was her comforter as obv that was irreplacable), it was the chewing that was the main point of it.

we solved it by getting her things she was "allowed" to chew - not chewy tubes in her case as she wouldn't chew those .

we used flannels instead - bought a few in a different colour form the ones we normally use - and each time we caught her chewing somethign just wordlessly replaced with what she was allowed to chew(making a fuss totally counterproductive with dd1 - she would then do the disallowed thing to wind us up!)

it was a long struggle, but we got there.

if it is more about the eating, have you looked at supplements/biomed? there is quite a case for AS/ASD children not digesting/absorbing nutrients properly and maybe he is lacking in something and seeking it out?

Hi

I'm interested in this too! DS (6) chews stuff endlessly - sleeves, bits of paper, tassles off my cushions!

DS 2 who is three even picked up a piece of paper from the floor yesterday and said 'here you go' to DS1!

He won't have chewy tubes either. Seems to like little bits to chew

Hi, just thought i would write (not much help but here goes).

I chewed my clothes until i was approx 12 years old , i still chew pens, pen lids, plastic bottle tops and any other small plastic items . I can remember my mum getting angry with me because of the state of my shirt collars and cuffs.

Just one of the AS traits i have, luckily my dd's (as/asd) don't chew but dd2 does like to lick things and put things in her mouth.

DS5 has pica too, and chews also.

DH and DS2 (12y) also STILL chew!

But i have noticed that if DS5 has eaten something hes not allowed (hes intollerant to lots & lots and on a CF/GF diet) his pica is much much worse. It has been associated with low iron/feritin levels - but we had that checked and his levels are brill, but thought it was worth a mention. HTH XXX