My DS is 16 months and his behaviour is getting increasingly extreme and I'm at a loss how to help him.
He's always been a very high energy baby, crawling, climbing and walking early, he loves to be busy. Up until 12 months he sleep was very interrupted, he didn't sleep longer than 2hrs at a time, awake for long periods in the night, short naps in the day.
Since 12 months he's been fab, he'll self settle at night and often sleeps 9 or 10 hrs in one go in his cot in his own room. If he wakes in the night before 3am I can usually resettle him but often, if he's had a big block of sleep and it's nearer 4am he's up for the day, although very unhappy about it and will scream despite my best efforts to comfort him. On these days he has two naps totaling 3ish hours. On later wakes he'll have one nap for 2ish hours. I think he's getting enough sleep.
He's eating really well and still has three of four breast feeds a day. We did have issues with CMPA, mainly horrible nappies, but he's been weaned gradually back on to dairy since 12 months and appears fine now.
His behaviour during the day is just getting so hard to handle and I don't know what to do. He slaps a lot, me, the cat, other adults and most upsettingly other kids and groups. I watch him like a hawk and am always next to him while he toddles about to try and intervine immediately before he makes contact but I'm not always quick enough. I tell him firmly 'no' with a serious face and say 'gentle hands' and show him how to touch gently and stroke. This was having some success and he'd give whom every he'd hit a gentle touch and sometimes a cuddle but not anymore. He's also pulled hair badly a couple of times. It's making me increasingly nervous at the groups we go to, not to mention upset.
At home with me he'll slap me in the face when feeding, if I pick him up, while getting him dressed and so on. He also bites, scratches, kicks and pulls my hair. It really hurts and I'm finding it so hard to keep calm. He's not talking yet and I sense a lot of times it's due to frustration on his part, it can escalate to him hitting himself in the head to the point of crying (I try and stop him doing this). I always explain what we are going to do and try to let him sit, lie down, take his shoes off or whatever before I try to help him. He does understand simple requests which does help sometimes.
Does anyone have any advice what else I can do? His behaviour seems very extreme compared to his peers. He can be incredibly loving and cuddly at times but seems so manic and out of control for large parts of the day. It's incredibly hard for me so must be really horrible for him.
Sorry that was such an essay...... 