19 month old hitting/pinching

[Hidihihidiho]

Hi,
I have an 19month old ds and recently their behaviour has been getting worse.
Hitting started a few weeks ago, mostly when we where making him do something he didn't want to..... bath, bed, eat etc we would pick them up and get a few wacks to the face, if we stopped him by holding their hands they would then try to head butt.
But this week the hitting is happening a lot, and he know also pinches and tries to scratch. He drew blood from my husband the other day!
We have tried saying no, putting them down and walking away but nothing seems to work. They get a look on their face which you can tell he has the pure intention to try and hurt us! I can sort of understand when he does it out of frustration but when we are playing nicely he will suddenly turn round and hit me!
Is this normal behaviour for their age?
Any suggestions on how to stop it?

Give him plenty of warnings before you want him to do something/stop doing something ie in a few minutes it's time to go for a bath, ok now it's time for a bath let's go! or When you have built a tower then it's time to stop playing and get ready for bed. They understand quite a lot at this age so let them know what is going on and what will be happening, rather than suddenly telling them i.e. Ok time for bath now (when they are in the middle of playing).

It's a tricky age, they have very short attention spans and can't always verbalise, so are prone to kicking off out of frustration. But yes it's normal!

Also, they hit etc to experiment with getting a reaction from you, which explains the random hitting.

Thank you for the replies.

We do sort of give warning about what's coming..... we say "time for bath soon" and he just Shakes his head and grunts "no".

But good to know it's normal of sorts!

He doesn't do it at the childminders just to us! X

DS is nearly 19m and has just started doing the same. We hope it's just a phase!