I have a 2 year old dcg in my care who tends to gyrate against her car seat's safety belt every time we go anywhere. I have had her for about 3 weeks now and this just started occurring Thursday of last week. When I first noticed it, I asked if she was okay and she said that she had to go potty (okay, sure, makes sense, some kids kind of hold themselves and do a little dance, right?). But then today, she was doing it again and I asked if she had to go potty and she said that she did not and when I asked what she was doing, she said "I don't know..."

I have a son who is 16 months and I used to care for my niece from age 3months to 18months but I never saw anything like that with her.

Dcg grabs the seat belt, holds it with both hands against herself, and just goes to town.

Does anyone with girls have any input? I would appreciate it!

Reply

oh boy...

He wouldn't like me saying this, but one of my sons (now grown) used to "hump" everything until he was about 4 1/2. It took a lot of "we do that in private, honey" to get him to break the habit.

I would try distracting her with a toy or a book, I think.

Reply

It is normal for kids to do this type of thing however there is nothing wrong with setting limits on this behavior or directing her to do this at home only. You can talk to the parents and be on the same page about how to deal with this.

Reply

^
^
^
that

Reply

I can laugh about this now because that phase with my child is done. She used to do the same thing while sitting in a shopping cart. It got so bad I would not take her or if I did I wouldn't put her in the cart.

Reply

if it just started does she have an itch.... maybe she should be checked for a yeast infection or pin worms

Reply

I would talk to the parents and ask them to have her checked for yeast infection, etc, and find out if they are seeing this at home. Barring that, just keep repeating, "this is something we do when we are alone."

One of my dds did this. After many times of telling her, "I understand it feels good, but you need to go to your room and be alone. That stuff is private," she would announce, "I am going to my room now, and I need to be ALONE!"

Reply

Is this child full-time?

I have a 20mo who has this problem. She doesn't exactly gyrate against the belt, she actually pushed her butt back against the seat and then slllllloooooowwwwllllyyy slides down so the belt rubs against her. She used to do this constantly during our field trips and it got to be so problematic when the other children started commenting on what Sally was doing.

This child is part-time so we no longer do field trips on the days she's here. Problem solved on my end. The mom has recently commented about it saying that she thinks Sally has a rash because she rubs against the seatbelt in her car seat. Nope, no rash.

If this child isn't full-time maybe her can schedule trips around her days?

Reply

Thank you for all your replies!

I decided to bring it up with dcm today at pick up.

I figured that while it may be normal, if it is something new then it is worth discussing with mom. Dcg is full-time and she has an older brother that we drop-off and pick-up from school everyday so rescheduling trips isn't really doable. :/ None of the other kids have noticed so it hasn't gotten too bad just yet.

When I brought it up today, dcm got so embarrassed! She said that dcg has been doing this since she was REALLY little and that she (dcm) hasn't been able to get her to stop in public. She said that she tries not to bring too much attention to it but that if she has the opportunity to bring up "privacy" then she will have a talk with dcg about doing those things in private.

Thank you again for all of your help! (:

Reply