DS Nearly 12 months hitting my face or whoevers is close to him

[Fakebook]

DS will be 12 months in 8 days (wooh!) however since 10.5 months he's developed a bad habit I don't know how to make him stop.

Out of the blue he will pounce at my face and hit me or pull my glasses off. He does it to everyone; his sister, his dad, his grandad. He slaps and then looks at you with a bewildered face.

I've tried saying "no, this hurts". "No". It doesn't work. I've tried holding his hands down gently and explaining that hitting hurts. He just looks at me and hits again. Sometimes he does it so hard out of the blue I shout out of shock.

Is this a phase? Is there anything else I can do to stop him doing this or will i have to ride it out? Never had this kind of trouble with dd, so don't know how to handle it.

walk off and leave him. go in a different room and don't give him your attention. tell everyone to do this if it happens. walking off is the opposite to what he wants/expects.

Thanks yousmell. He's also developed major separation anxiety so if I leave the room he'll have a melt down. Okay. Will try to ignore tomorrow.

what about staying in the room and walking away and not looking at him? it will pass honest

We're having a bit of success with 'no' followed by deliberately ignoring or turning away, it seems to be working better than the attention repeated 'no's get get, or watching to see if she does it again. But you have my sympathy with the glasses, DD does this and it is a nightmare. I gave in and got contact lenses...

Thanks for the replies, I'm at the point now I will try anything. He really hurts his sister too with slaps and pinches.

Okay so from tomorrow when he does it I'll just ignore with no reaction. When he turned 11 months he started shaking his head to "no" and laughing and he still does it sometimes. I'm thinking "no" has turned into a bit of a joke.

So he's hit me 3 times today. Each time I've put him down straight away and walked away without saying anything at all. Surprisingly he hasn't done it again within minutes like he normally does. So I think it's working. Thanks for the good advice.

Well done! I can only imagine how hard it is to walk away. But if he gets no attention at all for it, hopefully he will get bored of doing it.