15 month old keeps hitting himself in face?!

[Monkeybrain10]

My 15 month old is lively, funny and super cute, but (like most toddlers I assume) can have massive tantrums and pushes boundaries.

Recently in the last few weeks he has taken to slapping himself in the face - why?? Does anyone have any theories or experience of this weird behaviour?

He does it, looks shocked because it must hurt a bit, then laughs and does it more . I try very hard not to freak out or laugh (depending on how hard he's doing it) as I figure both things might encourage it, but it is hard to ignore so I have been trying to calmly stop him and distract him.

He also is in the habit of throwing things when he gets stroppy. Again - any suggestions of how to deal this would be appreciated. Thanks!

I think he's probably just experimenting. If my boy accidentally banged his head, he used to then deliberately do it again. I think the was just learning how hard was hard. A friend's little girl also did something similar.
About the throwing - if its deliberately thrown at another person / child i'd adopt a zero tolerance policy and confiscate the toy for a while. If it's not at a person I'd give one warning before confiscating. Seemed to work with my toddler - he rarely throws stuff now.

Our DS did this for a while. We ignored it generally and he stopped as the 'novelty' wore off. It does seem strange but we put it down to experimenting.

Thank you! We were starting to worry that our little cheery chap is turning into a horror - ha ha :-D It's good to know he's not the only child to experiment with slapping himself!?? Oh please let him grow out of this one quickly!