9 month old grabbing faces and pulling hair

[imaluckylady]

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to stop my DS from grabbing and hitting faces and pulling hair? He is quite a big strong boy and finds it all very funny when I say a firm 'no' and take his hands away. He giggles and does it again. Should I continue down this route and have faith that as he gets older he'll start to understand no? Should I put him down when he does it? i know he's little, but I don't want him to learn it is ok, especially because he spends time with other babies and children and can be pretty rough!

I used to say "oh are you stroking?" while moving his hand in a stroking motion over my face.

After a while, he would try and bash me, I say "stroking?" and he would stroke me instead (normally slightly violently) which was a big improvement. Now at 2, he's bored of it and never does it anymore.

It will pass. Just don't try and give too much attention to it. Just a firm no and pull hand away. Both mine did it and it passes.

I'd agree, it will pass

Another tactic to deal with it is distraction. Oh, and we told dd to do it Gently, which she got surprisingly quickly

my dd done this too, I asked the hv at the time and she said it's just dd "exploring" ... she's now 16months old and only gently pokes my mouth now :) it will pass :)

My DD started doing this at about 7-8 months. We used to take her hand and say 'gentle, gentle' and show her soft touching. If she pulled my hair it'd be 'let go of mummy's hair' (whilst I tried to contain the sheer pain!!). Don't give too much of a reaction I.e a loud 'No!' because that becomes the game...getting a reaction from you.

We also try not to say 'No' unless something is dangerous etc. I want to avoid my SIL/BIL problem whereby they used no and their 2yr old just says a defiant 'No!' back to them when they ask him to do anything.

We're just trying to use 'don't touch', 'come this way', 'put that down', etc etc