Under 2 yr old, hitting and slapping

[NaughtyStep2]

I have a DD who will be 2 in Feb 2014 and 95% of the time she is a fantastic and loving child. Recently she has started to hit me and pinch me whenever she either doesn't want to do something or when she can't have something. The most upsetting thing for me is my husband is away quite a lot of the time at present and has been since March this year so it's only been me and DD and it's mostly only me she does this too. She goes to nursery and she is as good as gold there, she never does it to my mum and her partner or my MIL either. I find it really hard to deal with this when i'm at home on my own as i don't have anyone to help me and tell me what to do.

I introduced the naughty step when she was about 16 months old and that seems to be working quite well and i'm wondering if the naughty step is the only thing i can do or is there some other things i can do to stop her from doing it OR is it the terrible two's come early and just hope one day she will grow out of it??

HELP WILL BE MOST APPRECIATED!!!!!

What happens when she hits you?

I put her straight on the naughty step and get her to stay there for a minute or so and i then call her in and tell her why she was put there, get her to say sorry, cuddle, kiss, love you and carry on.

If this behaviour is continuing despite the naughty step, then maybe she doesn't realise that you are upset/angry. Use a stern voice to tell her "Mummy is NOT happy. That was a VERY naughty thing you did!" etc. (not shouting, obviously)

We never did the naughty step. "The voice" was always enough.

Thank you for your advice. I do think i use a stern enough voice and say what you have said but it still doesn't seem to work and instead she starts to copy what i'm doing and how i'm saying it. If she does this, i then send her back to the naughty step and then tell her to not talk back to mummy and to listen.

Maybe i'm just expecting too much from her!!!!

I think before you think about what happens when she hits you you need to think about what happens before, little people need a huge amount of entertaining and if they are not kept busy or feel they have your undivided attention they will get it by any means necessary, so if you were busy munsnetting and she was talking to you but you ignored whilst you finished something she knows you will react immediately when she bites or hits.
I think your dp being away so long you must be exhausted, can you plan your week to make sure you have some stuff to do each day, some play groups, dmum and dmil coming over to play (perhaps whilst you do a bit if cleaning, as I find trying to feta this done with ds in tow is a recipe fir chaos)
I think your local children's centre or hv should be able to offer advice and support for encouraging good behaviour.

sorry for spelling mistakes feta =get and fir= for.

That does make perfect sense because she probably isn't getting the attention she wants because their is only me at the moment and trying to do all housework stuff as well as keep her entertained, it is really hard!! I do try and do something with her on the days that it's me and her. I've recently joined a parent group that walks around woods and plays games and sings song etc which she loved and i see as many family members as possible so she has interaction from other people too.

Thank you for all the advice too. I will endeavour to give her as much attention as possible!!

He's a little bit younger than your DD but my DS (nearly 17 months) went through a hitting phase a few weeks ago. What's worked for us is that when he hit I would gently hold his arms by his sides while saying 'No, we don't hit' and I would then ignore him for a mental count of 30 (which also gave me time to chill out!). He very, very rarely hits now, except for maybe when he's overtired, but even that is rare. No idea if it'll work for you, but might be worth a try.

I've worked out that a lot of the time it is attention she is after, it's so easy to get caught up in housework etc and not give your undivided attention. Something that I read on here has helped enormously - if you give 20 mins, say, of undivided attention (playing, reading a book, helping to draw etc) then you 'get back' maybe another 20 mins of them playing happily on their own. This is working really well with DD, so we have a good play together and then I can sit and have a cup of tea and MN in peace for a little while

If the naughty step isn't working, could you try a naughty room or something similar? With DD we put her outside the room and shut the door for maybe just 5 seconds (obviously as long as it is safe to do that). She hates it, obviously, and now she's nearing 2 we get her to say sorry and give us a hug, explaining again what she isn't to do. We've only had to do this half a dozen times and it is for kicking, biting, hitting or deliberately climbing on something she might break or fall off, and it is working quite well.