How do you teach a baby not to hurt you?

[SoggyBottoms]

And also, not to hurt others? 7 month old dd likes to pull my hair, my husbands chest hair etc, is there a nice way to teach her not to?

I know with puppies you are meant to yelp like the other puppies in their litter would have done but I've tried this and it doesn't seem to work...

From this age we always said a firm but not cross 'no don't hurt mummy/daddy/the cat' then strokes her hair or face and said 'aahhhh gentle'. She didn't understand the 'no' part at that age but she did start to understand the redirection.

Now DD is 17mo we still say 'no that hurts' and she then automatically says 'aahhh' and strokes us. Very cute!

We did the same as Kitty, say No that hurts then show her how to be gentle.

Same thing - say it hurts, and encourage them to do something else instead. It's only since 18mo or so that we've done anything else, and that was when DD deliberately hurt us by biting or scratching. They don't realise at 7mo what they are doing, really, though that doesn't mean it's not still painful!

(Kitty, our 2yo still does that, I told her yesterday not to hit the wall with a stick and she put the stick down, hugged the wall and said "sorry wall" )

at 7 months i would probably just ignore as baby cant help it

Try to anticipate when they are likely to do it and keep hold of their hand. Put a barrier of your hand in between your skin and theirs.
Then say no. Although they don't understand yet, they will one day.

Teethy sucky noise as you move out of range and "ouch no don't hurt mummy" said fairly gently. Later the noise works on its own to remind them not to clobber neighbouring toddler with toy. Worked for mine anyhow. From this age on they are learning cause and effect, how they impact the world etc seems silly not include some indication of pain when they accidentally hurt you. I used the same sound for any danger, to them or others inc fire, electrical stuff. It is handy because sometimes you can't verbalise fast enough to stop them.

Actually it's probably better described as a sharp intake of breath