Gag Me

Advice needed from seasoned parents!

In the last two weeks, Jack has started gagging himself, purposefully. He sticks three or four fingers into the back of his throat (generally after he's eaten, though it could be any time) and keeps them there until he gags and his eyes water. So far, he's not thrown up, but it's been close.

I have researched this online and found a few posts from other moms who said their kid(s) started this around 13 months of age. The best advice I've read thus far is to ignore the behavior. Apparently, when Jack sees me freak out and rush over to remove his hand from his mouth, it reinforces the behavior: he gets a crazy reaction from me. I've read that if you ignore this, the kid will stop doing it.

If your child has done this and you had success in stopping it, can you let me know what you did? It's just such a strange behavior. I keep saying he's acting bulimic (which I know isn't really funny, but I don't know how else to describe it). Thank you!

(Hopefully during nap time today or after bed time I will put up some great pictures and/or video taken during the last week, so stay tuned!)