Crayon eater -- good alternatives to crayons?

[ceeveg]

My daughter loves to draw, but barely has any crayons left because she keeps eating them. We have to chase her around and dig fragments of crayon from her mouth, and she has smeared multicolored drool on walls, cabinets, carpet, furniture and the dog

Do you have any good suggestions for alternatives to crayons that are safe and nontoxic for a 20mo? It's not such a big deal to me that she eats the crayons, but I'd rather she focus on drawing and creating other than trying to find a secret spot to munch on a crayon before mama finds out!

Thank you

[fruitlove]

I feel for you!

My DD was also into chewing on her crayons. Now she has crayon rocks and looks after them like they are a little treasure.

[Katie T]

My 21 month old has a health dose of crayons every time she colors as well.

[leighi123]

I got ds crayola twistables, only the tip of the crayon is out, so its harder to eat.

[cinderella08]

My daughter is just 15 months, so we are still in the scribble stage. She uses the tadoodles from crayola - only the tip is exposed, so at least it's LESS to eat

[lyra2007]

My DD only eats crayons occasionally now, but she used to ALL THE TIME. My sister got her the travel aquadoodle. I have no idea how this thing works, but you fill the pen with water and draw on the special pad. It evaporates and you do it again. She still ate the pen, but all she got was water.

[blizzard_babe]

Short colored pencils? I mean, I guess they're still kind of edible, but not as easily...

[tbone_kneegrabber]

markers. I found that ds was able to color better with markers. also they aren't as easy to eat.

magnadoodle.

[GwendalynsMommy]

My 17 month old eats them too. It's almost like she craves them because if she sees one she grabs it and goes under the dining room table to eat it (same thing for chalk). I keep wondering if there is some sort of nutrient in crayons that she is missing from her diet.

We've had to almost completely do away with crayons while she is awake. If she wants to do art then she gets to paint with yogurt that I color with food coloring. I'm hoping she grows out of the stage soon but until the I don't want her pooping rainbow colors.

[quantumleap]

We use washable, non-toxic, fine point markers. DD is not quite 15 months, and handles them quite well (we've been using them for a couple of months now).