Biting/hitting advice

[Sashkin]

Does anyone have any tips for managing biting at nursery in a pre-verbal toddler? DS20mo has apparently bitten another child three times now. This child likes to touch DS’s face (out of curiosity), DS doesn’t like it and bites.

He doesn’t do it at home, and he doesn’t have the verbal skills or memory for there to be any point in us telling him off at home hours later. He does get a bit hitty sometimes in the evenings when he is overtired, but it is always very obvious that he is overtired so we just pack him off to bed.

Is there anything we can do at home, or should I just bounce this back to nursery to deal with in the moment? (which is what I have done, but I got the impression they weren’t happy with this)

Well yes Nursery should be managing his behaviour while he’s there, you’re right. There’s some information here on stopping hitting and biting at home.

Does he get a nap at Nursery? If not, I’d suggest to them that he gets one, it might help him to cope a little better.

If he’s not talking, is his understanding ok? Talking Point have a guide on his understanding and speech here. If you think it’s an issue after reading it, I’d self refer for a hearing test and SALT. Oddly, our DDs speech improved once she had glasses

Thanks, that link is helpful. He does get a nap at nursery, but it’s pretty short (when he wakes up at home we shush him back to sleep for another hour, at nursery they let him get up and play). He would have 2-2.5hrs at home, compared with 1hr at nursery. Goes to sleep around 19:30, wakes up at 6am.

His speech is appropriate for his age (he meets all of the 18mo milestone on that second link, and 12/15 of the 2yr milestones). So I’m not actually worried about his language acquisition. But that’s still nothing like enough for us to say “hey DS, do you remember biting Jack 8hrs ago? That was naughty, don’t do it again”. I wouldn’t expect that level of understanding and self-reflection before he was three or four, honestly.

So I’m not sure what we can do about it so long after the incident has passed - if he was doing it at home we’d correct it in the moment. But if there is something that would be effective later we’d do it, we don’t want him to get a reputation as a biter.

I’d be pretty surprised if a 3 or 4 year old could understand and make thatcasdociation if I’m honest OP.

Well quite. So I’m not sure how we are meant to stop him doing it