Bella has this compulsion to do things. The list can change from day to day. Pull the rug up in the living room. Flip everything over. Climb up (nowhere in particular, just “up”), push buttons, literally. She will turn the TV off over and over again. You can get up a hundred times to turn it back on. Say “no” an equal amount of times and the behavior doesn’t change. The only way that we’ve found to stop her is to completely remove her from the room, take her into another room and sit with her for a minute. When we return to the living room, it’s like she could care less about the TV. That solution applies for pretty much all of her “compulsive” behaviors.
To say that my child “puts everything in her mouth”, is an understatement. I know that this can be brushed aside as just a typical child behavior as well but this behavior in toddlers usually stops at around a year old. Babies and young toddlers orally explore as another way to learn their environment. It’s another “behavior” that we can’t seem to control. Because of this, Bella needs to be supervised all the time.
Because of this, we’ve turned our living room into what we call a “safe room”. There is nothing in there that could hurt anyone if tipped over, knocked down or bumped into and every scrap of anything has been removed so it’s not ingested.. Except of course for my beautiful area rug that Bella always wants to pull up. This room also has a baby gate that keeps her from being able to get into the more dangerous parts of the house, like the kitchen and the utility closet. Since she figured out quickly how to unlock the gate, we’ve invested in a stockpile of zip ties to keep it closed. Pennies and loose change, stuffed animal insides, buttons, toy eyeballs from the previously mentioned stuffed animals and pretty much anything smaller than a two year olds mouth has been removed from this room. We even had to go so far as to remove the wheels off any toy cars or trucks and inspect all of the toys in there for any parts that can come off easily. Even with all of this, she still manages to find things to put in her mouth. Of course, I can’t control the outside, so you can only imagine some of the things she’s found out there to put in her mouth.
So, what do you do when you’re child doesn’t understand “no” or “yucky” or even “that will hurt you!”.
We keep a close an eye on her as we can and when we see something going towards her mouth that we didn’t give her, we hurdle over whatever is between us and her and fish it out. It’s gotten to the point now where when she sees us coming, she removes it and hands it out for us. The top of our entertainment center usually becomes “things we’ve taken from Bella.”
We’ve also had issues with her chewing on her clothes, her hair and her fingers. The hair was the easiest. It got to a point where her hair was so long that it was irritating her face, so we cut it. As for her fingers, we used this all natural, “nail polish” that has a very bitter taste to it. It’s used to deter children from sucking their thumb or biting their nails. It worked great, but eventually Bella learned that a few swipes on her shirt (soaked with saliva from chewing on it) was an easy way to get the bitter taste down enough so it wouldn’t bother her anymore.
We’ve tried to explain to Bella that putting things in her mouth spreads germs and it could make her sick. We’ve told her that it could hurt her or that she could even choke on small things. She doesn’t seem to understand us. Either that, or her compulsion to do it is so overwhelming that she can’t really resist it. We don’t know which it is.
When we notice that she’s sucking on things, we try to persuade her to eat something, or drink some juice. We figure that maybe sometimes, she just wants a different taste in her mouth. This is usually hit or miss. We’ve even gone so far as to give her a baby teething ring to use as a way to keep other things out of her mouth. After a lot of observation, we’ve realized that it’s not just a need to chew or suck on something, it’s more of a way for her to “orally explore” the objects in her hand. She does suffer with sensory processing, so we think that maybe along with her other senses it’s just another way for her to “discover” things.
As we grow up, we stop using our mouths to explore things. We realize that by looking or smelling something whether it’s a bad idea to eat it. I would assume that with Bella’s sensory issues, her other senses don’t do the job they should so she continues to also use her sense of taste to get a handle on what she’s exploring. My only fear with this behavior is that she will one day put something in her mouth that will make her ill, or worst case scenario, she’ll choke on something. It’s because of this issue that I went to get my First Aid/CPR certificate.
As of right now, we’ve found nothing that can stop her for doing this. I don’t know if her mind will ever let her truly stop doing it. I started this blog as a way to share our experiences and to pass along what I’ve learned, in hopes that I could help other people going through the same things. I realize that the people who read this could help me too. So if you have any ideas, advice or suggestions, please know that you are more than welcome to share them.
Thank you.
"Living with an autistic child is a new adventure everyday."
