When does your toddler stop drooling?

[ksn]

Hi there...

My 28 month old son is still drooling..... seems like it has been this way for ages.... basically since he was 4 months old.

It is embarassing for him to put on a bib to childcare since he is already in Nursery 1! He stopped for a while, but it seems to be coming back again.

Don't know what is happening. Don't think that it is teething cos all his teeth are out.

Any advice?

[NicoleElizabeth]

You might try a consultation with an ear, nose, and throat specialist. My little brother was a huge drooler, and still needed a drool bib (or got half his shirt sopping wet) at the age of 3. It turned out that he had hugely enlarged tonsils and adenoids, and I gather that enlarged tonsils can be a common culprit in big droolers. The other red flag in my brother's case was his snoring, and as he got older, my mom started noticing that he had a few incidents of sleep apnea. Another common issue in kids with enlarged tonsils is difficulty swallowing -- my brother would always complain about eating meat, and insist that my mother cut it in miniscule pieces, and one of the first things the ENT doc asked my mom was if my brother had trouble swallowing meat -- the enlarged tonsils made it very difficult for him.

[rwikene]

my nephew drooled a little (not constantly but pretty often) until he was around 3...we had to keep reminding him to swallow :LOL

[kittyb4me]

One thing that we started doing that seemed to help my son - when we notice that he has lots of drool starting, we just quietly and tactfully ask him to wipe his chin. We read that it can be caused by a lack of muscle tone in the jaw, and a few simple reminders will help the child to give it a little more thought. The trick is not to embarrass them or make them self-conscious about it. Also, I noticed that after he got the hang of enjoying a sucker, drool lessened significantly! Please no one beat me up for letting
him have candy. Thay are few and far between, and have helped as a reward for going potty, listening, etc.

Kathleen