Please help me! I'm nearly at wit's end!

[momtoemma]

My younger DD is 15 months old, and she has been putting things in her mouth for months now! She will put absolutely anything in her mouth and attempt to eat it or bite on it. I know that babies learn by putting things in their mouths, but this is getting ridiculous! Most recently, she has tried the little rocks/pebbles that are in with our gas fireplace logs for decoration, and her favorite thing to do these days in open a kitchen cabinet door and gnaw on the corner. She has also been known to remove the tiny felt pads that are on the inside of each of the cabinet doors and try to eat them. Just this morning, she got ahold of a letter my mom hadn't gotten to the mailbox yet and chewed the corner of the envelope off! I would appreciate any tips to curb this habit or alternatives for keeping her from chewing on things are are not appropriate. Thanks in advance!

[californiagirl]

Offer her lots of things she can chew on, with different textures. Redirect, redirect, redirect. Make sure that if she puts something in her mouth she's not supposed to have you immediately separate her from it and provide something she can chew on. Offer her celery, or lightly steamed carrots that are still crunchy. Have a bunch of different kinds of teethers.

But honestly, mostly you're just preventing her from poisoning herself or damaging things while you wait for it to wear off, as far as I can tell. Immediate redirection will keep it from being worse than it has to be, but nothing is going to make it go away while biology is still driving her to do it.

[alkagift]

I agree, give her lots of fun stuff to chew on. Whether they are teething type toys (there are lots of kinds, lots of textures to choose from) or fruits and veggies. Try unusual things like sour tastes (my son can suck on lemons for a half-hour, easily) or really chewy things like fruit leather. You can get good quality dried fruit in the health food section of your grocery store or at Whole Foods. Try anything that sounds different, even if you wouldn't think she'd like it.

Allison
Mommy to Matthew, who is TWO!