Hitting

[LittleBugsMum]

My 2 year old is hitting his 7 month old brother a lot.

He does it when he's excited, angry or sometimes just randomly smacks his head. He seems to like him though, it's strange.

Any advice on how to stop it and/or punishment because it's getting quite bad.

This has probably been done to death, hence no reply. Will check previous threads :)

No advice, but I feel your pain. 2 yo hits his 3 mo sister - but in our case, its pure jealously, I think. I wish they could talk about their feelings to us!

I suspect it's jealousy for us too but how do we prove we still love our eldest?

Well, even articulate adults have a hard time explaining how they feel a lot of the time coughs, husband, coughs

Thanks for your reply :)

I have no personal experience of this but I do know that my SD did it to her mums little boy, not out of malice she just didnt know how to interact with him, mum praised her being good and gentle and moved her away with not so much as telling off as a comment on not making baby sad when she did it and SD stopped not long after

Praise the good and re-direct the anger/jealousy. I think all too often we tell our children 'No, you must not hit', when they may be feeling things that they cannot express verbally, but need to get out.

You can always say 'I see you feel angry, it's not okay to hit your brother, but you can hit a cushion or the sofa'.

Personally I have a six foot punchbag, somedays it comes in very handy