Corrective behavior

knottiec489a81ea9515ab2

Hello everyone. My daughter is 15 months old and for the past week has been putting her hand/fingers in her mouth to the point of gagging, vomiting twice. Telling her “no” and removing her hand makes her cry, only to start laughing and doing it again when we walk away. Any thoughts on why she is doing this and any remedies you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

j-redd222

Instead of just taking her hand out of her mouth maybe try to swap her hand with something else that is appropriate to be in her mouth like a teething toy, or a snack. This is what I’ve done for redirection with my kids and biting or putting dangerous things in their mouth (crayons, markers, etc.) and it’s worked pretty well- not sure if it would translate over to this issue. Normally when Ive done this with my kids I’ll tell them firmly we don’t put that in our mouths, ask if they’re hungry or need to bite something and then have them come find the appropriate alternative with me. If they say they’re just hungry they’ll come with me to the kitchen to pick out a snack and I’ll tell them next time you can tell mommy you’re hungry before you put that in your mouth. If they are just teething, I’ll have them come find a teething toy with me and tell them you can put this in your mouth instead but we do not put *insert object* in our mouths because it can hurt us. For hands, you can explain that it can cause yucky germs to get in our bodies if we put them in our mouths/ spread our germs on everything we touch after and that it can cause us to throw up if she’s getting to the point of gagging (if there’s enough communication skills for explanation). I hope this helps! 

noortle

My 15 month old is doing the same thing! She hasn’t vomited yet but shoves her hand in far enough to make herself gag. Unless she’s occupied with something else, she does it all the time. I don’t have a solution yet other than knowing that gagging is pretty unpleasant so hopefully the natural consequences will teach her to stop before too long? She still likes teething toys so I will try giving her something else to chew or hold when it gets bad.

allmyhart

Any updates OP?  Hoping distraction and teething toys are helping!!