Friends baby keeps biting my baby!!

[Nikki1stbubba]

Evening all!

Im new here and this is my first post (although if ever i've needed an answer for something i've always come on here and read other peoples advice).

I'm at a loss as to what to do and could really do with some advice.

My friend's baby is 10 months old while mine is 9 months old and they couldn't have more different personalities if they tried!

I'm really not being bias but DS is an absolute angel and has been since birth. He's always been a good sleeper / eater / communicator etc and is generally an absolute joy to be around as he is such a happy and loving little boy.

My friend on the other hand, seems to have had the 'problem child' out of the two of us (even saying that I feel guilty!) Her little boy has been a screamer since the moment he entered the world......and still is a screamer.

My MIL works with children that have a whole range of disabilities such as Autism, Asperger's, ADHD and so on, and she seems to think (just by what i've told her) that he may have a touch of either Asperger's or Autism.

I'll give you all a run down of his behaviour and see if anybody else could shed some more light.....

*He screams non stop

*Doesn't interact with his mum (although he is a bit better with other people, by that I mean you might be lucky enough to get a smile out of him)

*He flaps his arms about a lot

*Has no perception of other childrens feelings (10 months old is very young I know, but to sink his teeth into my DS over and over again, dig at his eyes, scratch him and just generally terrorise him causing him to cry for 4 hours solid one morning without batting an eyelid and just going about his business until he gets bored and comes back to bite DS some more) seems a little disturbing to me. He didn't even bat an eyelid when DS was balling his eyes out because he had attacked him so much!

*He doesn't say anything yet, not even mumbled 'mummm' or 'da da da', he just makes this high pitched screaming noise when he's playing

I feel really bad but its making me not want to meet up with my friend (of 15 years) anymore.

She popped round to me the other day for a 'play' date. They arrived at 11am and left at 4pm. The whole time my other wise sociable angel clung to me, sobbing and looking absolutely terrified. I was getting a little bit annoyed as I thought that if it was my DS that was causing such upset, I would have been mortified and made my excuses / apologies and left, but she never, she stayed and more or less told me that my DS needed to 'toughen up'!!!

I dont know what to do, do I mention to her that I think maybe she should get some advice (he viciously bites her aswell, she has deep scars all up her arms and legs and a fresh looking wound on her eyebrow now aswell) and risk offending her or do I continue to stay quiet and put my poor child through this torture at our so called 'play dates'????

Sorry for the REALLY long post, Its been on my mind for a while and its nice to be able to vent my frustration on here instead of chewing DH ear off :D

Thanks and look forward to your replys xx

Nikki
I think most of us XPed tbh. And we are all so vain that we write what we have decided to write without checking to see if someone else has already written it.

Can you meet at her house, then you have the choice to go early? Or at softplay type place?

I don't see why your child would be upset by another child's presence for 4 hours... they have the memory of goldfishes at this stage, perhaps your dc is teething or there was another reason they were clingy? Also, saying the other baby "flew" at yours makes them sound like something out of a vampire film! Presumably the other baby thought yours was a delightful play object and went over to have a good old explore, which at this age involves biting and scratching and all sorts (all very normal).

I was at a Play and Stay with my toddler today, he is 2. A 10 or 11 month old came over, clambered all over him, headbutted him and ended up whacking him in the face with a heavy wooden truck he'd picked up... I was on tenterhooks trying to keep ds calm/extricate him from the situation (baby had got in between us) before he took matters into his own hands. Ds was shrieking "baby, mummy! baby doing? baby naughty! Take it naughty baby off!" while I was saying "he's just a baby, don't worry, he's just playing, it's an accident" and trying to steer my son away without making the baby fall over on top of him or lose his footing!

Seriously, this is just how babies behave. Your friend isn't "mortified" because she expects that babies will do this. My little toddler took it personally today, but hey, he's just two! Your baby is not being terrorised or endangered by the presence of another baby, it's up to you and his mum to work together to prevent them from grabbing at/biting/scratching eachother.. you just need to take action to stop the biting from happening by removing your child or asking her to remove hers in a "ooh Johnny, gentle with Mary" kind of way. Things like playpens and baby walkers and other things that contain children can be useful when they're in this exploring stage. Stop judging a ten month old for being ten months old and extrapolating all sorts from it, you may lose a very good friendship.

The day will come when you are mortified by your own child's behaviour towards another child. It comes to us all, there's no escape. They learn how to be social beings through trial and error and yes, all of them learn to toughen up too.

Of course there is the chance that your friend's baby might be mildly delayed if he really does scream all the time and shows no interaction with anyone including his mother. However, a) that is no reason for her to be mortified and b) really, it would be a much bigger social gaffe for you as an adult to expect she should have a "problem" with his behaviour at 10 months than it is for her 10 month old to rampage about the place.

Sorry you are finding the straight talking hard going, but I think you need it!

You know what, it's up to you to protect your child - whatever issues this other baby might have, why are you allowing your baby to be repeatedly hurt over an extended period??

If your friend comes round, keep the babies separate.

MmeLindor I did just think that, maybe people haven't read back previous messages, I'd do the same! Haha

We are planning on going to a few groups together (maybe sitting on opposite sides of the room for the first 30 mins :o

Hopefully, with so many other children to interact with my baby will get some welcomed relief and friends baby can learn how to play with other children and feel more comfortable around them

What Rita said (just to disprove what MmeLindor said ).

So what do you want us to say then? How can we actually help? Only we've answered things that you already knew (that you didn't state in your op), so am wondering what else is left to say?

Also, if you want shorter visits, arrange something to do in the afternoon. Have somewhere to be by 1.30 say, make this clear at the outset. Try to remember that the concept of a "playdate" under about 2-2.5 is totally defunct, it's a "mumdate". They won't truly play together until well into the toddler years, they just see eachother as objects. This will be true for your child too, who thinks this child is a scary object!

X-p'd there! Seriously, read some books on child development. It will do you the world of good. Children really don't play with other children at this age, their "sociability" is confined to smiling at adults reciprocally and laughing at actions/objects that the find amusing. You have blown this out of all proportion.

working9while5

I give up, people have obviously decided that I'm this harsh, over expectant, proud mother that doesnt recognise normal stages in babies.

I couldnt leave, it was in my house, he did fly at him (obviously not the winged type of flight) and yes I did protect him. He wasnt teething, he was purely upset because of what was happening.

The next day when I took him to plat with his cousins of similiar age, he was fine, played like they usually do until one accidentally hit him on the back with a toy (I did not have a breakdown as I know this is normal when babies are playing) resulting in DS screaching and pushing his cousin away and then crying. Brother and SIL were shocked as he had never behaved like this, until I told them about his play date the day before. He obviously remembered it and then thought that every child that tapped him was going to hurt him. And as for them having the memory of a goldfish, really? Of course they havent

working9while5

Ive just read my message back and realised it comes across rude, I'm really not being rude! sorry! :)

smallwhitecat my nephew has Aspergers and yes he did display all these symptoms from an early age, just took years to get a diagnosis, I'm not an ignorant person and I do understand the condition. Im not judging my friend for it at all

You don't though, you really don't.

You are being silly and you don't even realise it. You seem to want people to say you have a point, when really the responsibility for managing baby's behaviours towards eachother at this age is between the parents and nothing to do with the child.

Nikki, when ds was your ds's age, every single group we went to with babies of his age involved both parties trying to "explore" eachother's eyes or teethe on eachother! Both parents would sensibly say no and remove their child. This is the answer you are not responding to!

Incidentally, in terms of the following day, what did you think your ds should do when he was hit with a toy? Not react at all? His reaction was entirely normal, who was "shocked" by it? Are you kidding? What would you do if someone bigger than you hit you on the back and you weren't expecting it????

Smallwhitecat, I think if you strip away the vampiric hyperbole, really the OP is describing what a lot of babies would do with another baby if there was inadequate adult supervision. They will treat the baby as a toy and explore it. At this age, that involves poking, biting, grabbing, pulling etc. They can't help it, they have poor recognition of babies of their own age as being really human.

Nikki, describe what you think 10 month old "normal" babies would do with eachother on a playdate if what you have seen is so "abnormal'?

COCKadoodledooo

Your really quite rude aren't you???

I came on here for a chat, not to be told that I dont know how to protect my child, that I have over exaggerated what happened and that i need to understand children more>

I did not expect anything, just a CHAT not an interrogation or to be pulled over the coals

Nikki, seriously. Leave the ASD out of it. Babies of this age are just developing joint attention, it's really only nascent (9-10 months it begins to emerge for definite)... and the whole diagnosis of autism rests on the lack of development of reciprocal attention and how it impacts later social interactions with peers, rigidity of behaviour, differences in language in communication. There are some very highly specialist centres in the States who can diagnose in early infancy using very high tech methods but no one can do it in this country at the present point in time, so it's a bit much to be saying you've "seen the signs" in a ten month old! I have been involved in diagnosing hundreds of kids, it's always done as part of a full multidisciplinary assessment because it is notoriously subjective and you are not describing anything out of the range of normal behaviour at this point. That's not to say that there may not be some difference (who am I to say, never saw the kid) but believe me, there are a wide range of things that can cause behaviours that seem unusual (which really, you haven't described many of) and your MIL needs a kick up the arse for using a little bit of knowledge to speculate in a gossipy way about something so serious!

Working9while5

Do you really think we wasnt supervising them??????????????

Do you really think I would allow another child to hurt my child and think nothing of it???????????????

We did do the whole letting them explore eachother and telling him no when he got too rough, he just wasn't ready to play ball and just kept trying to get at DS.

I know that its 'normal' for babies to explore eachother and I did not call him 'abnormal' all I was saying is that his behaviour seemed excessive and just wondered if anybody else had experienced the same situation and how they dealt with it

This is getting stupid

Nikki
You seem determined to take offense no matter what people posted.

You stated your problem in the OP and asked our opinion. We gave our opinion - some more forceful that others that is true - and you immediately went on the defensive and said that you know children cannot feel empathy (despite exclaiming over the child's inability to perceive the feelings of others, which is pretty much the definition of empathy)

If you don't want opinions, don't post on MN.

I mentioned that he seemed to be displaying certain signs, the same signs as what my nephew did. In no way did I say He has ASD!!!!!

Smallwhitecat

I am not being ignorant towards ASD at all, although thats what it seems to have been turned around to look like??!!!!!!

MmeLindor

No not at all, I just didnt expect to be made like total shit thats all!! I wasnt asking to be patted and told there there its all ok, I was just sharing a day that I had experienced!

And yes I may be defensive, when people are questioning my ability to protect my child, would you not be??

Yes, it is getting stupid. You need to be careful because what you are saying is in ways, really quite offensive. Remember there are a lot of people whose babies do have autism and other developmental difficulties and the way you have written about this child is a bit "Damien Omen" while professing to be concern about his development. I know you may not mean it that way, but believe me, it is coming across that way.

I don't think you were supervising them well enough if actual damage was done, to be honest. It's not really that hard to keep 10 month olds away from eachother. If it hadn't worked once, you just separate them.. it's not rocket science. You use a playpen or something else like a walker, ball-pool etc, you distract both babies by giving them other things to focus on, you sit between them or you say to the mum "listen, I forgot, I have to go and pick something up in town so sorry but I'm going to have to cut this short for today".

He wasn't ready to "play ball" because he is 10 months old and he's not going to learn this lesson in one day in your front room!

If you were closely supervising, then how did the other baby manage to hurt yours several times over hours? Surely the first time it happens you just keep them separate, sit down on the full between them, intervene immediately etc.?

Nikki
Working did not say you weren't supervising. She said that if left alone, babies of that age would explore each other and that it was totally normal. Which is why we don't leave them alone cause they cannot tell the difference between touching and poking in the eye.