Sucking on Shirt

Hi! It's been such a long time since Ive been on here but summer and 3 kids amazingly takes time away! Anyways, over the summer, we've noticed that Landon, the youngest of my twins has began to suck on his shirt collar or shirt sleeve. Has anyone else had this issue and how did you deal with it? I believe that it's probably anxiety/stress related and most likely he'll grow out of it but I wanted to know if anyone had had this issue before with their kiddos. We're also allergic to artifiial dyes which causes ADHD symptoms so I wasnt sure if that was related or not. Anyone else???

Thanks!

 

YES!! My son used to suck on his collar all the time. His entire shirt would be wet and he would make holes in his shirt from it. Drove us insane. He eventually stopped, but it took him forever to quit. He would come home from school with his shirt wet and everything. It was probably second or third grade before we finally got him to quit. My son has ADHD, but I honestly do not believe that this had anything to do with it. I think it was a replacement for his thumb-sucking. He couldn't suck his thumb anymore (we restricted it to his room) and also there wasn't tolerance at school for thumb-sucking, so I think he sucked on his shirt as a replacement for that. I really don't know how it stopped, but we just kept consistent with the no sucking your shirt and he did eventually stop doing it. It was one of THE most frustrating things to see him come home with this nasty wet shirt.

 

THanks! I was wondering if it had somethign to do with ADHD as some other posts on other sites had mentioned - most of their ADHD kids did it. It is frustrating, he's ruined shirts - not holes but stretching the collars out. It started when they went to visit their dad in West Virginia for a week. They came home and he was doing it. Comfort ? Being away from mom? and it just kinda stuck?

 

Both of my boys have, on occasion, gone through periods of shirt-sucking. I gave a few gentle reminders and the phase didn't last. No ADHD issues here and thumb sucking ended long ago. Really, nothing seemed to be a trigger. It was like they simply tried something, enjoyed it, and did it some more. We had a few oral things going on at the same time (chewing on non-food items and such) but nothing extreme or persistent so I just reminded them that it wasn't food and asked them to please not chew that. I was careful to not make it a big deal.

 

My daughter at 4.5 still does this. Did it today. The sleeve on her shirt was drenched. It totally grosses me out, but the girl has a major oral fixation. It doesn't help that we still allow her to have a paci at night in her bed. We're just not ready to take it from her yet and it's not allowed to leave her bed so...

I figure when we do throw them away for good (we told her at 5 we will say good bye to them if she hasn't given it up yet), she will chew on everything that much more. She has always ALWAYS put stuff in her mouth. Toys, clothes, books, whatever she can get her hands on. Not sure why (probably the paci, who knows), but I figure, she'll get over it eventually so I'm not going to stress about it. When I see her doing it, I just remind her to stop and when her shirt gets wet enough, I change it. What else can I do? Life is stressful enough to fret about it. This too shall pass

 

My 6yr old did this CONSTANTLY and still does in stressful situations or when he thinks he's in trouble for something....

I just kept reminding him not to chew on his shirt and he'd stop. I never got mad (even tho I wanted to scream!!). It just took lots of repetition.