Starting this past Friday, my 2.5 year old son has started blinking really hard (sometimes to the point of nodding his head) when he gets excited about something. I've noticed it happens when he's watching a show he likes on TV, reading a book or even when we took him to the park and the common denominator is he was excited. When he's just playing at home with his cars or talking to me or my husband, he doesn't do it. I'm thinking it's facial tics caused by stress (we recently started potty training him and he's been freaked out by pooping). Anyone else go through this? (FYI: the stress from the potty training seems internal. My husband and I have gone to extremes to make the process not stressful for him but he wants to be a "big kid" and go poop in the potty but he's scared to poop in the potty and has been holding it in. The past couple of poops he had we had to practically beg him to just let it out in his pull-up just b/c we didn't want him holding it in and everytime he makes it to the potty, he loses all urge to go. So other than that, I don't know what else I can do to help relieve the stress. :( Thanks...
My brother had that when he was little, the doctor classified it as Turrets Syndrome (a small form of it) you can read about it online. And talk to his doctor about common causes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turrets_syndrome
Could be the early stages of Tourette's.
A friend's little guy was just diagnosed with it (he's 5 now), and excessive blinking was the start of it.
They also though it was too much TV/video game related, until it started to show up outside of those times.
I don't know about the blinking but you could stop potty training him for now. If you know it's stressing him out, why not put him back in diapers and remove the stress for a while? It's common for boys to not potty train until 3 or 4.
Back off on toilet training. Not completely, but take his lead. Put him in underwear and if accidents happen, they happen. You clean them up. He'll get tired of having accidents and having to take baths and change his clothes. Don't make a big deal over them, and don't shame him, but when he succeeds give him minimal to moderate praise. He'll get it. It's going to take time, though. Right now he's just being pressured too much.
My son had a tic that he lost over time. I recorded him on my phone so the doctor could see just how bad it was. It was really bad if he was watching tv. He would just constantly blink.
My suggestion...I would take him to see his pediatrician. It could be something more severe but, I would just see what the doctor has to say.
Good luck.
