# My two year old is contstantly eating paper!



## Rikki Jean (Jul 15, 2005)

I'm starting to get worried about DS. He has been eating paper like candy lately (Okay, maybe not candy, because he's never had it, but ykwim). One day last week, he ate an entire half of a birthday card. The next day, I found the booklet insert to his Wiggles CD, with a giant chunk chewed out of the corner. Today, he chew off the corner of a paperback book, about 20 pages in length. In the car, I can't give him board books anymore, because he just eats them the whole time.

Can someone please tell me if this is normal, or if I need to be worried about him having some kind of nutritional deficiency (or worse)? I had posted about this around a year ago, but at the time we just chalked it up to teething. He's older now, and has a lot of other options if it is teething. He's also eating so much of it, and that's what really has me concerned.








:

I'm also going to post about this in H&H, just in case...


----------



## Tofu the Geek (Dec 2, 2003)

Okay, I just read on another thread that someone's child ate books, and they were iron deficient I believe. Let me try and find it and maybe you can ask her about it!


----------



## bri276 (Mar 24, 2005)

yes, it's called pica and it may or may not be related to a deficiency of iron or something else. have you done an anemia bloodtest recently?


----------



## Tofu the Geek (Dec 2, 2003)

Okay, here is the post http://www.mothering.com/discussions...3&postcount=24


----------



## Rikki Jean (Jul 15, 2005)

His blood lead test keeps getting put off for one stupid reason or another. That post just really scared me, and I'm going to make sure that we get it done this week. We live in an old house, where we painted over the lead paint in most of the rooms, but still have two rooms to paint, so there is still lead in our walls (he's not a wall chewer though; I know that for sure).

Ugh, this is just what I want to be worrying about when I have a baby coming any day.


----------



## Rikki Jean (Jul 15, 2005)

Okay, reading this made me feel better: http://kidshealth.org/parent/nutriti...tion/pica.html. I mean, he could definitely still have it, but it's not as scary as I thought. Also, I see that it says that children who have Pica are at risk for lead poisoning because they want to eat paint. What I read in the thread about the anemia/lead poisoning link sounded different to me, like lead poisoning causes the Pica.

Anyway, blah, blah, blah, I'll make sure to get him to his test this week!







:


----------

