My son is 3 and sleeps with his favorite blankie. He has had it
since birth and he carries it everywhere with him. He is a
real-life Linus.
Anyways, until he was about 2 (I know, I know. Should have
stopped it WAY sooner.) he had a binky. He was pretty much fine
when we took it away, and I didn't notice him replacing it with
another way to self-soothe until recently. Over the last few
weeks he has been biting on his blankie. He mostly does it closer
to bed time or when he is just relaxing. At first I thought it
might be due to new molars coming in or something, but he has
kept at it for awhile now.
At first he would just chew on it, but now I've noticed that he
stuffs a sizable piece into his mouth and falls asleep like that.
I've gone in to his room at night to check on him and have had to
pull it out of his mouth. I was shocked at how much was in there!
I have a few concerns. The first is dental. I can't imagine this
being good for his teeth if a binkly isn't. The second, more
important concern is that he could inadvertantly block his airway
in his sleep. Is this possible? Would it wake him up so he could
get his blankie our of his mouth? Or am I nuts?
What do you think? Any suggestions on what I can do to stop this?
