If your child used to put EVERYTHING in the mouth...

When did it stop??? I mean, they find the tinest crumbs on the floor and in the mouth it goes. Also, I know they don't quite get the real purpose of all their toys but when do they actually start JUST playing with them and not trying to eat them? Does it stop once all their teeth come in? Or is it a behavior that stops from them eventually understanding us when we tell them not to put things in their mouth??

 

Joey was an eater. She would eat anything on the floor and pick carpet fuzz and eat it too. She finally just stopped around 16 months. No idea why the behavior ended, but I don't think it was from us telling her to stop. She's 2 now and no longer puts random things in her mouth.

 

My boys didn't stop until about 16-18 months but there are times that I feel they do it again for a while and then stop again. I have a friend who was so shocked my boys still did it at that age, her child stopped by 10 months!
Hang in there, it will get better!

 

My daughter put everything in her mouth since she was little and she'll be 3 soon and still does. This morning I found her sucking on two screws. She'll pick up her toys and chew on them for the heck of them and when we are out about whatever she finds will go into her mouth which means pennies, rocks, sand, caps....sigh. She knows better because I'll ask her what she's doing and she'll say oh, not food doesn't go in the mouth and still does it. I'm hoping this ends soon. My son went through the the typical stage of putting things in his mouth but around a year old he stopped. Every so often he'll put something in his mouth but rarely does.

 

We're going through this right now - my boys are 16 months and STILL put everything in their mouth.

 

Hayden will be 5 in a few weeks, and he still puts lots of things in his mouth. He chews his fingernails, and I'll catch him with the remote, toy cars, pencils...just about anything really. It's not constant, but he does it a lot. We were at LensCrafters last week and I caught him picking up little bread crumbs from the floor and eating them. I said, "What are you doing?" and he said, "But Mom, it tastes good!" :blink:

 

We still deal with it!!! It's not as relentless as it used to be - so we are improving, but we still have some issues!

 

Sarah used to put everything in her mouth, and it got a lot better around 15 months. In fact I posted this exact question at about 12-13 months and that's what everyone said.

She does still chew on a lot of things, but mostly if she's teething. And at least she doesn't eat wood chips from the playground or random trash off the sidewalk, which was my main concern. Still, "out of the mouth!" is pretty commonly heard in our house. And they're in daycare with kids from 16-22 months and they're not the only ones who mouth things -- even the older kids do it to some extent. But it's more of a background thing than a constant irritation, at this point.

Amy still eats food off the floor if I don't clean up quickly enough after meals. But that's a separate issue -- she knows it's food, and thinks it's more fun to eat it off the floor than off the tray.

I also noticed a big increase in using toys for their intended purpose (rather than just chewing on them) around 13-14 months.

So overall, it should get better for you pretty soon.