Son being targeted

[Playdoh45]

My son is 15months old and goes to a wonderful nursery where he is otherwise thriving. The teachers are all absolutely lovely and I want to be clear, I know this is not their fault so this is where I am stuck.

There is a serial biter at the daycare , he is now targeting my son. They have obviously stopped lots of bites but he has been bitten 3 times recently. Breaking skin.
Most recently my son was playing alone with blocks and apparently the boy just came up and bite him randomly. Last time they were playing together and my son was walking infront of him too slowly and he bite him very deeply on the shoulder.

The nursery say they are working with the parents and monitoring him closely however..... he has been biting for many months with no improvement.

They can't watch him every minute of the day surely so when do we escalate this?

Biting is of course normal toddler behaviour but it's the same child going for my son (for whatever reason?) .

Anyone have any experience of this and can advise?

Some of these replies are barking mad and acting like these are fifteen year olds, not fifteen month old children!

People saying ‘it isn’t normal - MY children never did it’ - just because your children happened not to, doesn’t mean it isn’t ’normal.’ It’s a stage of development and is usually linked to frustration when children lack the verbal skills to say what they want. IME it peaks at around eighteen months and tapers off then. Should have vanished altogether by the time the child is around three. My DS is now four and hasn’t bitten anyone since turning two and he was terrible!

There are not enough yikes in all the world.

Thanks everyone. Again I do appreciate.
My son has never bitten at home or at nursery (that I am aware of!) and I'm actually worried if he starts with all this biting being done to him!

This happened to my son and he ended up with herpes virus and now has permanent cold sores for his life. We were so angry and ended up removing my son from there. Still anvry about it now.

My child is the youngest in the room.
The child I believe it is, looks around 2.5? Possibly moving rooms soon based on this but I'm not sure.

What did you do to manage the biting? Did he bite lots at nursery?

Omg this is terrifying . I'm so sorry this happened to you and your child!

Hopefully you’d then face criminal charges, and social services would investigate your suitability to parent a young child.

OMG, that thread has escalated. OP, it is obviously horrible for your child to be bitten, but please.... isolation???
My son was a biter till he was 4... we were the parents who were regularly told he had bitten again, they were monitoring etc. So glad that other parents' reactions as well as the nursery's were reasonable.
His biting suddenly stopped when the pre-school room moved to a new, much bigger room. I think he just felt very stuffy in the old room (it also got intolerably hot in the summer). He is now a early teenager who has never had as much of a warning in secondary school.
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And do you know what they'd find? Children who don't bite other children.

I would ask for a meeting as soon as they can tbh, and demand they either move the other child or your son to a different room immediately — enough is enough, they’ve had a chance to monitor behaviour etc and your son is still being bitten by this child.

My husband was annoyed and upset then they banned him from the premises for saying he was going to take it further as we were on bite number 4 where he has come home with teeth marks in his nose. We removed him after that. Now looking back I wish i removed him earlier after bite 1. Nursery staff surely can be watching the biters and separating them, not leaving them all to their own devices to bite each other. We have two children and have used maybe 5 nurseries over the time when they were little and only had the biting issue in one place. I ca only assume they were lazy and not watching the kids

Of course its normal. Just because some pp haven't experienced it themselves, doesn't mean it's not common. We are talking about toddlers who cant speak yet or control their impulses.

Don't speak to the parents, or 'teach your child to punch back'. Speak to the nursery and tell them that their approach isn't working, you're concerned that they can't appear to keep your child safe from a continued and known danger, ask them for a copy of their risk assessment for continuing to have a known biter in nursery, ask them foe next steps and also for plan b if those next steps don't work. Their staffing ratios are not your concern, it's their issue to work out.

One of mine had a biting phase at around 2, I was mortified, we worked with nursery and were consistent in our approach and it did work, but they were clear that if it didn't improve then they would have to take other measures and last resort looking at stopping the nursery place as the safety of other children is the most important thing

With a parent who bites other adults.
You think that wouldn’t be a concern?

So are you saying that it’s your parenting that’s the reason for this? Because it isn’t! I can assure you I’ve never bitten or encouraged either of my little darlings to bite; they just did. Many children do. Have you actually put ‘toddlers biting’ in google as it’s perfectly normal.

An adult approaching another adult and biting them however is completely fucking insane!

Always been, but it is quite recent so many young children are looked after outside their home.

You have to work with nursery and you need to be very clear about it's not okay and you expect them to keep your child safe. Complain and demand a meeting with a follow up plan every time your child is bit.

If nursery doesn't see how important it is to keep children safe find another nursery.

Oh and my biter now has the most points for good behaviour in the class so don't think was a sign of anything too sinister

My kids have recently started biting. It’s a nightmare. I will say it’s hard to watch them all the time even when I’m home because I look away for a second and someone’s bit someone or is biting me. They are starting to stop now because they know they get in big trouble if they bite, but at the start didn’t seem to matter what I did. I know DS 3 picked it up from DD 5 and she laid off biting him once he figured out to bite back. I know my kids started this when they found out they were getting another sibling, which I think is a different reason to why this child is biting. I would be worried about the obvious physical harm, but also that he may pick up the biting behaviour. Like all the other advice said, speak to the nursery and keep on their ass about what they’re doing everyday. They might move the child if enough fuss is kicked up, but it really depends.

I actually had a phone call last week to say there was a ‘biting incident’ - after DS, I was quite relieved my DD was the victim and not the instigator!

@atriskacademic was he allowed to bite the same child repeatedly? And break skin?
How did they manage it to reduce risk?

@DrinkFeckArseBrick I don't think the parents strategies could working. I know this child was biting at our orientation in January. It is only now he is targeting my child but he's been biting for months.

It isn’t; my DS is quite chilled out now mostly.

For him, his language skills were a bit limited for a while - no delays but just not as developed as some toddlers, and I think that was frustrating for him. It tapered off as his language improved. He was also notably worse if eg he had an ear infection or was starting to become unwell.

Don't worry everyone... I'm not going to bite anyone... parents or child!

They do sometimes. I’m not saying that nursery should not be doing more, but I remember posting about DS biting and no amount of removing him from soft plays or taking toys or time outs worked. I think because in that moment he obviously wasn’t thinking ‘ooh, best not do this as then she’ll take me home.’ Sometimes all you really can do is not to give them a chance.

Biting is normal. It’s a sign the biter is frustrated. Could be for a variety of reasons. They need to have a member of staff 1:1 with the biter abs to jump in and redirect/move him the minute the see a bite is about to happen. If they are not willing to do this then you have your answer about their level of commitment to stop the biting.
Just to say it’s unlikely your son is being targeted. They are toddlers and they really don’t operate that way.

I had a biter. It’s embarrassing but fortunately (not not for his brother, Dad or I) he only would bite at home.
But it is about watching them like a hawk in nursery and stopping the bite.

The nursery said my son and a couple of other children are repeated targets and he is going for the exact same children over and over. I also read this is very common to bite the same children.