16mo hurting me. What an I doing wrong?

[HoggleHoggle]

Ds 16 mo has always been a bit of a biter, worse when tired or teething, both of which has been the case for the last week or so.

His biting is getting out of control. He used to stop when calmly told no biting, he will now carry on and increase pressure whilst tearing his head away so it's causing actual damage to my skin. He also pinches and scratches me.

These incidents happen usually when we're doing something he doesn't want to, ie nappy change, put shoes on etc.

I always give him warnings about what we're doing next, we have a gentle and calm approach, but essentially there are certain things that need to happen sometimes, there's no avoiding them, and this is when I'm being bitten. It's nearly always me, not dh.

I fully know ds is too young to understand what he's doing properly, but he definitely knows he's hurting me. And he wants to hurt me in those moments.

We've both been ill for the last week which is making it worse, we're both tired and it's getting on top of me. I make sure I keep calm when it happens, try not to react even though I'm in a lot of pain. Calmly say no, and also remove him from the situation so he has a consequence of what he's done. It's not working. What else can I do? I just cried, properly cried, in another room, as he has hurt me so much with biting and pinching, and it also hurts me that he wants to do it.

This is tough and it sounds like you're handling it really well. I found with my DS that he improved a lot when he was able express himself verbally. You don't say where your DS is at with language development, but it may be that he is finding it really frustrating not being able say what he is feeling.

One thing that I found helped with DS at this stage was empathising with his anger and frustration. So, for example, saying things like 'I can see you are angry that I won't let you play with my bag. It's hard when you want something you can't have, but it's not ok to bite Mummy'. Now that DS is nearly two and a half, he's much better. He does still kick and scratch when he's tired, but I've just started doing 'calm breathing' with him (I get him to mirror me breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth) and it seems to diffuse the situation. Good luck.

Thanks chocolate. Today has been just utterly hideous. Ds is overtired which is obviously not helping the lashing out - he's already in bed! I try to keep on top of his tiredness as it's definitely a contributing factor, but with illness and teething recently we're in a bit of a bad cycle.

Ds can't verbalise much yet, he's good with a few words but def not enough to express himself. I like your idea re calm breathing, think that's a good one and will also be an extra prop for me when keeping myself calm and even. Not easy!

Thanks for your kind words, they've really helped at the end of a rubbish day.

Sorry it's been such a rubbish day. It's so hard sometimes not to take it personally and I've lost the plot on many occasions, in spite of my best intentions to react in a calm and consistent way. Even if your DS is too young yet to understand calm breathing, it will help you feel better and he will pick up on that.

It does get better as their language skills, emotional development and impulse control improve. Hang on in there.