19 month old who bites a lot

[katherz]

Hi

Was just after some advice from fellow mums (or dads.) My youngest child is 19 months and is a lovely happy child. He has excellent vocabulary for his age and seems very bright. The problem is he keeps biting all the time and it seems to be getting worse. We had a behaviour slip from his nursery today (where he attends part time) to say that he had bitten another child and that he had tried to bite other children over 25 times today. He also bites his elder brother (who is nearly 3) and me and his daddy (less so with daddy)

Any ideas for how to discourage this? It's not due to a lack of attention because often he does this when we are sitting down playing nicely altogether. Sometimes it seems to be when he is angry/ frustrated and sometimes he does it when he gets a bit too excited. The problem is when you tell him no he laughs and then keeps biting.

Any ideas greatly appreciated

Thanks

My DD was 19 mths when I had DS and during my pregnancy and while DS was young we had a terrible problem with biting. She bit a friends little baby, random children, friends children, me and so on.

I googled it and it said between 1 in 5 and 1 in 10 children will bite at some point. So it is more common than you would think.

The reasons for biting could be attention seeking, teething, over excitement, frustration they learn it gets an explosive reaction, most likely a combination of the above.

I tried everything to stop her, the most successful was to pick her up, go and looking the crying child in the face and explain how sad and hurt the bitten child was, I would comfort the child, apologise to the mum etc, then get DD to find a toy to give the child to make them feel better. I did that every time and eventually it just stopped. At playgroups I shadowed her (DS in arms) to try and prevent incidents.

I think the less fuss you make the better, if they get a big reaction from you it encourages the behaviour, I am sure of it.

Good luck. One good thing is if any child has bitten one of mine subsequently (and they have) I brush it off easily. Often the hardest thing was dealing with the other mothers reaction, the bitten child was over it way before the mum had calmed down.

Good luck. Just coming out the other side of thus with ds. Agree with everything including other parents reactions being tricky. In fact only starting to see some friends again because their reaction was making me overreact in a counter productive way. Watching like hawk worked well, I guess it then became hardlyvworth the bother as I was always there. And an appropriate reaction from me of disapproval but not so extreme as to be it's own reward. With ds he has improved as language has improved, other ways to express how he feels. And just remember there will come a point where you can relax and enjoy coffee at a toddler group again!

Toddler groups are fine- he never bites there, and he has never bitten any of my friend's children either, he just seems to bite at nursery, and at home (not loads at home but its becoming more common which is making me worry.)

I'm wondering whether he is doing it at nursery cos he's bored and wants to get a reaction, like I said in my first post his language is really excellent for his age (think its the product of being a second child with such a small age gap with his older brother.) He can tell you what he wants to watch on tv- not that he watches very much, just in the morning and last thing at night as a calm down before bath, story and bed (he says jacks for numberjacks and noughts for octonaughts- and if that doesn't work he will put the remote control in your hand and tell you again), can tell you what games he wants (pirate for pop-up-pirate for example) Asks for cereal or toast in the morning and can ask for teacake if he wants that etc. I'm just wondering because he is so used to playing with older children because of his brother whether he is bored at nursery (he is in a room for 1-2 year olds)

Any thoughts?

It's very important to pay a lot of attention to the child who is being bitten and make a real fuss over the other child.

Also, please please don't give him any cuddles when he bites. I can see it in other parents. If their child bites, they pick up their child in their arms. Im my opinion this is wrong. You shouldn't pick him up or give him cuddles or attention in any way.

Also, at that age, I think that having a simmer down corner or chair or step might help (at home). You have to take your child away from his play and stop him from playing for a couple of minutes and no cuddles.

I don't think that being bored is a reason to be honest. Neither is being clever or having good vocabulary. If his speech was behind you would probably 'blame' it on the lack of speech. ('Blame' is not the right word really as it is negative, and I am not being negative. Trying to find a trigger or cause is more accurate).

My DD was also very forward with her vocabulary, so maybe it was a factor with her also. Or maybe, as Blueberry said, it's nothing to do with it.

Blueberry, I would pick DD up so she was on a level with the bitten child (who was in their mums arms). DD had to look at the childs face as they cried and I comforted bitten child/mum. It wasn't cuddles but it was often necessary to pick her up to deal with it. I approached it that they do need attention when they have bitten, to teach them to right way to behave. As long as they are getting lots of positive attention generally too (as OPs child is).

Were you of the ignore it and it will go away faster persuasion? That's another strategy I looked at but was not brave enough to try. It worked though? I realise you comforted bitten child/mum too, and dealt with that part of it.

OP what have Nursery said about how they are handling it? Are they shadowing her? They must have faced this issue before, loads of times?

I wouldn't ignore it, I just wouldn't pick them up. If a child bite I would 1- say a very loud no 2- see to the other child 3- take DS by the hand and lead in a corner seperate from everyone else and leave Ds sitting down, or standing up, in a corner and tell him to stay there for 1 minute 3- explain to the child why he is in the corner and say that bitting really hurts and is not acceptable and 4- apologise to the other child and mum.

I am pretty strict about behaviour like that. Although neither my kids have bitten, they have hit other children and I have taken a very very firm position on this.

Also we have three set rules in our house that I repeate all the time:
Rule 1 - We do not hit, never ever.
Rule 2 - We do not step on the road unless an adult is holding your hand
Rule 3 - We do not never ever throw our toys. If a toy is thrown I put it on the fridge for one week.

I like your rules blueberry.