For the past 2 months my 18 month old has taken to squeezing my neck (one hand each side) with the sort of force equivalent to extracting juice from a very old lemon.
He is really strong with very good fine motor skills. I have a long, skinny neck with no fat whatsoever and I genuinely fear he may rupture an artery. It's bloody excruciating and he stares me directly in the eye and usually smiles while doing it.
I have tried so hard not to react, to ignore the behaviour etc but inevitably end up at least grimacing as it's so painful. I'm really close to just screaming at him tbh as it feels like this is going on too long to be a phase and I'm worried he'll never stop. I can deal with the irrational tantrums but this just really gets to me. I'm pretty sure he just does it out of boredom.
What oh what do I do to stop this? 😬