Gross toddler behavior - how to stop?

[bowies]

This is going to be gross. Fair warning.





DS is recently in the habit of sticking his fingers down his throat so he gags and throws up some food in his mouth, where he will either swallow it or let it dribble down his chin. My immediate reaction is to take his hand out of his mouth immediately while saying no. He finds this to be a game. Sometimes distraction works and sometimes it doesn't. I have a hard time not puking myself when he's doing this. Help meeeeeeeeeeeeee.

[bears]

I would ignore.

[thebreakfastclub]

My almost 3yo still does this, although he's never thrown up from it.

I tell him to get his hands out and then ignore from there.

[indifferentstars]

This was an issue for us too (in addition to making himself vomit anytime he was displeased with the situation, mostly being put in his crib). I did a lot of removing his hand without even saying anything to him. I wanted to create as little "reinforcement" for the behavior as possible. I'd ignore if if he was just putting fingers into his mouth as if he was going to gag himself but not yet shoving them back far enough to gag/vomit. Sometimes that was enough- he seemed to push it more if he was getting a reaction from us. Mostly I think time fixed it for us, either he became bored or realized he did not like the feel of it after all. It took months though

[chickadee77]

Ignore. L does this - I think she's experimenting with how the chewed up food feels or something. She seems to giggle and exaggerate it if I react, so I ignore.

[rex]

ignore. L did this, but only to my h because he's so dramatic about everything and she loves to get a rise out of him. when I finally got him to just ignore, she stopped. she also went through a spitting phase that ended very quickly because I ignored/acted like it was perfectly normal.

[bowies]

Parenthood is magical.

[humpforfree]

I had this issue over the summer. ignore. After he saw no reaction, like once, he stopped. Of course it was after he puked up blueberries.