I have a 20 month old DS who has started hitting and scratching, mostly his older sister (4yo) but also occasionally other kids at nursery. The trigger doesn’t seem to be anger or frustration funnily enough, it appears to be when they are rough playing (rolling around the floor on each other) and he gets over excited and he grabs her face which results in big scratches on her face. I’ve done the whole gentle hands thing, playing stops, comforting big sister and making a fuss over her (which he absolutely hates as he’s very jealous and clingy to me) and none of it seems to help. If anything it seems to be ramping up. I never had any these problems with my DD and feel a bit out of my depth. I know it’s a phase and it will pass but my poor DD constantly has scratches over her face and she’s so gentle she would never hit him back so it’s not as if he’s reacting to her.
I’ve considered getting the travel cot out the loft and using it as it a sort of immediate consequence for a minute or so but I’m not sure that this sits right with me, I’ve never had to use any kind of naughty step or anything before. In terms of Development/ speech and language and understanding he’s doing really well and no concerns there although he’s obviously still too young to understand impulse control. I keep his nails trimmed very short and filed but somehow he still leaves scratches!