My 3 year old does too.

[gilchresta]

At the beginning of april, almost two months ago now, my daughter who is 3 started blinking as has been described in this thread.  It totally freaked me out the first time I saw it. I didn't say anything then because,you know kids do weird things sometimes just learning about their bodies.  Anyway, we were on a mini-vacation so when she continued to do the weird blinking continuously through the day, almost constantly, I figured she was just having allergies.  The next day she was still blinking so I asked her if her eyes were hurting her.  Well, immediately after I asked she started blinking even more.  "okay" I thought, "this is probably no big deal since she knows what I am talking about when I asked her if something is wrong".  None the less I asked her a few more times over the next few days and got the same result.  And her blinking continued.  After we were done with our vacation and went home I asked her a few times in our normal surroundings, which the blinking had slowed a little after being home for a couple of days.  She never indicated there was anything wrong or in pain.  So, I made the decision to ignore it.  I think she saw that she was getting attention by doing something unusual so she was playing it up a little.  After a day or so of pretending not to notice I did observe a drastic decrease in how much she was blinking.  Over the next few weeks it became just an every now and then sort of thing, but it was still happening.   So, when my kids got sinus infections shortly after that point I mentioned it to their pediatrician.  The pediatrician said it was probably just a response to allergens or that it was just something she discovered.  I remember there were a few things her older sister had discovered when she was about 3, a gasping sort of thing being one of them, and would not stop doing them for what seemed like an eternity; but she got over them and moved on to other things. So after seeing the doctor I decided to just continue my quiet observation of my daughters behavior.  It is now almost the end of May and the blinking thing is pretty much gone.  I see it maybe every few days, but typically there is an event I can correlate the blinking to, like wind, or  extreme brightness.  So I am chalking it up to just one of those things. I will continue to watch her, as we do, but I am comforted by the fact that it seemed to resolve itself.  Hope this was helpful.


This discussion is related to Blinking.

[jdtm]

Actually, the "blinking" could be a response to anxiety.  If I read your post correctly, the blinking increased when she was away from the comfort and perceived safety of her home and when this behaviour was "brought to her attention".  Then the blinking decreased when no one mentioned it.  I am wondering if the blinking was due to mild anxiety and not as an attention-getting behaviour.  If this behaviour occurs again under somewhat stressful situations (or even a change in the family routine), then anxiety might be the issue.  If so, I feel the best thing is to ignore the behaviour and not mention the blinking and then try to lessen her anxiety/stress by reassurance and comforting.

[gilchresta]

I had thought of that because we do have anxiety and depression issues in my family, and on my husbands.   It didn't seem to relate to any stress that was going on so I sort of ruled that out.  She tends to express her anxiety by getting SUPER clingy, and when she does that I usually let her.  We might sit together and just chat.  She still is not at the point where she might verbalize what is truly bothering her but just chatting seems to help.  Mommy time helps a lot. :)