Eye Poking, Head Banging, etc.

Hayden's eye poking continues to get worse.  It seems as if he is constantly digging his thumb or index finger into his right eye.  Every once in a while, he pokes his left.  Since poking his eye could cause his eye to bleed, which could lead to scarring and possible detachment of what little of his peripheral retina is attached, we have to watch him very closely.  It's becoming quite a full-time job to manage this behavior.  His therapists have said all that we can do is to try to redirect his behavior.  No discipline.  It's happening so much that even Nicholas is beginning to remove Hayden's finger from his eye.  For a very busy 2 yr old to figure this out, it's clearly happening far too often.  We are always amazed at how Nicholas tries to take care of his brother without any prompting from us.  Hayden has the best little brother ever. 

Unfortunately, the eye poking isn't Hayden's only self-stimulating behavior.  He does a lot of poking of his nose and ears.  He also continuously moves his arm up and down so that it hits his chin.  As much as we have a hard time watching him do those things, at least they aren't harming him at this time.  The other behavior that causes us worry is his head banging.  He repeatedly bangs the back of his head on his chair while sitting--especially while we are feeding him.  It's so hard to watch him do these things and know that there's little we can do but our best to keep him safe and continue to pray that he doesn't cause himself any harm.  With any luck, one day these disturbing behaviors will be a memory.