That’s my four-year-old talking about her big brother, Max. Sometimes, when they’re playing together, Max accidentally drools on her. And she thinks it’s gross. “Honey, he didn’t do it on purpose,” I’ll tell her. “It just happens sometime. Maybe you can help wipe his mouth next time.”
Max drools pretty regularly throughout the day. He’s not aware of it and so usually it just hangs from his lip until it drops onto his shirt or I lean over and wipe it with my shirtsleeve. I do this without thinking; I don’t notice the drool anymore. Unless Sabrina says something, or I realize his bib and shirt are sopping wet or other kids comment.
We ordered special patches Max could wear on his neck to dry up his mouth. I haven’t had the heart to use them yet; I don’t want to put him at any discomfort just so he can look like a “typical” kid and spare his sister close encounters with drool.
I just don’t think I need to “fix” every little thing about my child. He’s not perfect. None of us are. Why pretend?
Ellen blogs daily at To The Max
My son drools as well. He goes through phases though, when he is more oral and therefore drools more. I agree with you. None of us are perfect.
Max is adorable..drool or no drool.
There might be a point in his life that Max is tired of dealing with the drool. Or if it got to the point where the drool was leading to sores/infection that will not heal. Either situation would be an opportunity to try the patch or additional intervention.
my daughter used to drool too, so she wore a bib for a long time. Then I got her some cute scarves for Kindergarten. Eventually the drooling stopped, around age 8
I think Max is fine no matter what!
I like to prioritize the “fixing”–so that I keep my sanity! I can usually only focus on a few things at one time, anyway. Once I read some of Donna Williams’ book–can’t remember the name but it’s the yellow one–I looked at fixing differently.
My daughter works with her little brother at his school, and she tells all the other kids there that it’s “cool drool, if it gets on you, it makes you cool”.
I have runbinol to give Josh to dry up his drool more, but I only give it to him in the winter whenever if he has a rash around his mouth. It has turned into impetigo before and once spread all the way up to his eyes! He looked terrible. I tend to think all those meds, just cause other problems somewhere else. My friend took rubinol for gall bladder spasms, she said her mouth was so dry it was uncomfortable, and she would never want to give it to her daughter.
So I’m sticking with cool drool!
We call my daughter “drool monkey” all the time. The way I see it, drooling is the least of our worries.