when do babies stop chewing on everything?

[kfillmore]

When do babies generally stop chewing/eating/mouthing/tasting everything that they see?

[nukuspot]

I just asked my friend who is the Dad of an older child this recently. He said "I don't know...Seven years old?"

Oh, please tell me that is not true!

[elmh23]

Depends on the child.

My 5 year old stopped before a year. Her almost 3 year old brother still puts weird things in his mouth every now and then but it is becoming less frequent. And then there is dd's friend, who will be 6 in April, who still licks just about everything any time they are out of the house.

Some kids are just more oral than others.

[lifeguard]

Ds is 15 months & rarely puts things in his mouth anymore, but I think he is unusual in that regard.

[stephanie95]

I think some kids are just more "oral" than others. My 1st DS is 14 YEARS old and still puts all kinds of weird things in his mouth. He doesn't even realize it most of the time. My DD is 3 and rarely chews anything. She didn't even chew while teething. We'll see how the baby DS turns out. He's 3.5 months and is starting to chew on his hands.

But to answer your question, I did find once the teeth were in chewing lessed with my DS.

[kfillmore]

UGH! not the answers I was looking for! I have a chewing maniac. She is 10+ months and has 5 teeth. Right now she is chewing on one of the door gates...no, now it is a zipper.

[SeekingSerenity]

My DS used to chew anything made of paper. From cardboard to tissue paper, he'd chew it like it was gum and then spit it out. It seemed like I was finding little wet lumps of gooey paper on the floor for ages.

I only mention that because I just found another one stuck to my sock. The gooey lumps are much smaller now and usually colorful, but still paper, still being chewed and spat upon the floor by my now almost 7-year old boy.

I have little toothmarks in all of my books from when he was a baby. Nowadays, I have bite-marks in everything from greeting cards to posters. He's weird, what can I say??

[kdtmom2be]

seemingly never

[ktmama]

In general, three seems to be the age when you can relax a bit and stop worrying about safety so much. My four year old still puts LOTS of things in her mouth, but I'm not worried about her choking anymore.

[Abraisme]

This is one of those questions that doesn't really have an answer.. My DS stopped putting non-food items in his mouth before 12mo. My DH still puts things in his mouth and he sucked his thumb until he was 10. You have to cater to your child's personality.