Chewing on Tees

This phase was maddening for me as a mom.  Michael would not stop chewing on the collars of his tee shirts.  It meant a tee shirt could be ruined in a day because he had chewed holes into it – one day  – ugh.

My approach to this new behavior was two-fold.  One, I needed tons of cheap tee shirts, because regardless of how I tried to get him to stop chewing, it would take time.  We got a few from the local second hand shop, got a few on sale at Target and then we ordered a pack of white cotton tees on amazon. To make it fun, we also ordered a tie-dye kit.  He tie-dyed a bunch of shirts and that way it was clear that he was, in fact, changing his clothes (as opposed to wearing the identical white tee shirt every day).

Why was he doing this?

I needed to figure it out and find another way for him to meet this need.  The obvious first guess was some kind of oral sensory need.

First, we did all the things that are free.  In other words, we offered crunchy carrots or pretzels as snacks. We let him chew on ice chips.  We offered ice pops on hot days.  All of these aimed at meeting his oral sensory need.

Then, we moved on to buying a few things that might help.  Online, I found some chew necklaces.  After observing Mikey with them, I knew they were safe for him.  No pieces were coming off.  And these seemed to meet his needs.

Blocking

At the same time as we were teaching him to use the chew necklaces, we also had to block him chewing on his shirts.  This sounds meaner than it actually was.  We’d just gently put our hand in the way if he was trying to put his collar into his mouth.  Then offering the chew necklace, which was always around his neck, gave him another option to meet the same need.

Note

You may need the help of an Occupational Therapist if chewing or oral fixation becomes a big problem.  Reach out. Your child’s school or your child’s doctor may be able to help…and… this will not be the first time they have handled a problem like this.

Keep the shirts with the holes for bed. You won’t be there to block and the behavior may persist when unsupervised (especially since it is not safe to wear a necklace to sleep). Plus, who cares if their shirts have holes when there is no one else there to see it.