Biting

[TJ34]

My 19 month old son is biting other infants at nursery as well as myself. Can anyone recommend how i can get him to stop this. Initally we thought it was teething he seems to have all his teeth now. any ideas??

My friend and I were talking about biting the other day and she said an expert in a nursery she had once worked in said when they bite you tap thier teeth and say no teeth, no teeth! My DS is not biting (yet!) but if he does I will give this a go as I have seen others struggle to stop thier DC biting.

not much to offer but as a recently bitten party, watching this thread with interest

My DS was a biter from the age of 18 months till just after his second birthday. He was treated as a monster by some of the Moms of the children he bit and it really affected us as parents. We tried everything! He never hit, scratched, kicked, or pinched but biting seemed to make him appear more monstrous than the other children who displayed a range of the other actions. Eventually it seemed the best tact was to stop whatever activity we were doing or leave whatever occasion we were at the minute he bit someone. We gave him clear explanations of why we left, telling him we were leaving "the party" or "the play area" because he had bitten another child, that he had hurt them and they were sad. We would show our disappointment in him. We always warned him at the start of an activity that we would leave if he bit. Anyway it worked. He is now one of the least aggressive children I know.

jojomum - I could have written your post.

I think prevention is better than cure. DS2 started biting when he was teething and it became a habit. He used to do it more when excited - eg at soft play centres - so we'd reduce the length of time we spent there. Also tiredness and hunger were triggers.

Try to be calm and firm and speak in a low voice. Don't worry too much - it is a horrible thing to be the mum of a biter (my other DS used to get bitten by his friend and I know whose mum was more upset...)- because worrying tends to make us go all high-ptched and squeaky which can sometimes result in a child biting because they are getting perverse reward (attention) for it

If he bites you, put him down or walk away from him.

thanks everyone for your responses.

DS2 was a biter at that age and beyond. Lovely teacher at preschool said that some children love chewing and biting and it feels good to them, so they had some chew toys specifically for biting on. It sounds daft but it did help and he stopped biting in anger. We had a soft toy knight and when ds2 got into biting mode we'd say, 'bite the knight! bite the knight'. It definitely helped. (All sympathy to you though. It is horrible to be bitten, and massively compounded by guilt. Ugh).