You know you have an Autistic child when

[shimmerysilverglitter]

you spend the afternoon googling safe, chewable objects for them to chomp on instead of their clothes, hands, pens, pencils, YOU!

Anyone got any ideas? Found a site called Chewellerey (chewable jewellery) , which has some good stuff but in Canada and really expensive.

No idea, but watching with interest.

chewy tubes?

I used ot give dd1 (colour coded) flannels fo rher to chew instead of her clothes

Ha Ds won't chew anything I deliberately give him to gnaw on. Lego is a favourite now.

have you considered a dog chew?

something like this is not obviously a dog toy, and the small 6 inch verson would fit in a pocket.

It's the k'nex that gets ravaged in my house, none of it sticks together any more because ds1 has chewed all the ends to oblivion.

yep, we spent a long month patiently removing whatever dd1 was chewing and giving her a flannel (she had shown a preference for cloth) - honestly ahd to do it 100+ times a day

at the end of it, rather than chewing the flannel, she gave up! stubborn mare!

still, at least she doesn't chew her clothes anymore

My Ds has this problem too-got much better when I gave him zinc aupplement-apparently there is a link-not sure of scientific basis to it though! Also massaging sides of cheeks with electric toothbrush, sucking thick drinks like smoothies up a curly straw all seemed to help but in times of stress we do see a reappearance of the dreaded soaking wet dribble infested t shirt...
HTH

Chewy tubes are supposed to be great - the ASD outreach woman here swears by them. Not sure where you get them from though.

We got some chewellrey from a company in wetherby I think... a special needs website.. didn't work for us, but we got a necklace and bracelet for about a tenner.. will try find site,,, they are like curly wirley cords like you get on keyrings... our DS pulled his bottom two teeth out with them though lol..

www.kapitex.com/contact

have a look on there, they do the chewy tubes, and also I'm sure we got chewlrey from there....

ds1 uses rags out of my sewing box

chewy tubes might make a nice change for him though!

I am so SICK of ruined coats and school jumpers

chewellery sounds good

Wow, this has hit me for six, only just getting a thorough DX for my 10 year old DS1, he has chewed the neck of every piece of clothing he has ever had, and the buttons off everything he can reach, it's given me one of those moments when everything seems so much clearer! (although it still doesn't get the collars of his t-shirts back to anything resembling normal ). I'm going to research chewellry in the hope that this summers tops remaining wearable for his little brothers.

You know I spent ages working out how to spell remaining then and as it turns out it's the wrong word anyway, fine, remain.

Thanks everyone. Seems there are quite a few chompers out there. Been in touch with his OT and she is going to get us some more stuff. He has a chewable rubber tube already and he uses it ALOT so I want to get some spares.

It is not something I would ever have thought of doing tbh but our OT was so matter of fact about it. She said better this than some of the stuff she has seen some of these kids chew, makes sense really though.

JUST FOUND THIS

Actually DH chews everything too, he is slightly more discrete about it - but there isnt a watch strap or pen top or keyring that doesnt resemble something found in the bottom of the dogs basket.

the funniest things he chews are those little plastic squeezy gadgets that tighten up cords on clothes - hes always trapping his lips in them doesnt stop him tho!

DS1 is a label twiddler. DS2 is a chewer (likes lego too), DS3 is a t-shirt sucker, DS5 likes sucking pebbles. Tactile defensive DS5 is loathe to anything in his mouth except cake.

DD1 chewed her headboard and footboard -looked like a puppy had had a good go at it! If it helps, she seems to have outgrown the chewing stage now (she's 9).