How to stop my 2.5 yr old from hitting?

[HotMommy]

My 2.5 year old daughter has started hitting me and my husband quite a bit. It's not hard hitting, more like light slapping but I want to put a stop to it before it escalates into something worse. We have a 7 week old baby and she is starting to act out quite a bit in general. She hits when she is frustrated and looking for attention, mostly when i am feeding baby. She seems to think its funny.

I spent the majority if yesterday afternoon sternly telling her "we don't hit" etc and trying to distract her from doing it. I tell her to be gentle and that she should tell me what she wants instead of hitting and she has to wait, or we can read a story, if I'm feeding baby. I even tried putting her in 'time out'(in her room for a minute or so with the door closed) but she started hitting again as soon as I let her out and as I was explaining to her why she was in time out!

She is pretty happy to say "sorry" and give a hug but just goes straight back to hitting.

I know it must be frustration setting in because of new baby she she feels like she us getting less attention. How do you avoid this when you have a young baby??

It's the first time in her life she has needed to be disciplined as she has pretty much never given us a reason to get after her, and she doesn't really respond to it. She frankly thinks its funny when I use a stern voice with her and sit her down to talk about it. She actually says "its funny mommy"! I don't want to yell at her (and when I have she tells me very sternly to use my inside voice....) and it doesn't work anyway.

I think I need to give her more attention how do you cope with a toddker acting out like this when you can't just drop everything else and give them undivided attention? Please help before I turn into a crazy mum at my wits end with my gorgeous (and now quite naughty) little girl?

[Gooseysgirl]

www.amazon.co.uk/Hands-are-Hitting-Good-Behaviour/dp/1408110717?tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

[stressbucket1]

I have a 2 year gap between my 2 and we had exactly the same problem. Dd2 is 10 months now and as I remember the phase did pass quite quickly but time out did not work at all! She would repeat the behaviour as soon as she came out of time out too. I found lots of positive attention and praise worked. As she approaches you give her a hug or a kiss before she gets chance to hit. I Think they just need lots of positive interaction because of they feel pushed out. Timeout or telling off just started a negative spiral! Also a drink and snack even tv too helped during babies feed time. Its really difficult to do several timeouts disrupting baby's feeds all the time isn't it?