17 mo suddenly started hitting...other children, me, dad....Any tips on stopping this?

[mewbilly]

DD has always been a real handful from day one - needs loads of attention, is very headstrong & certainly knows what she wants!
She's always been more angry & frustrated than other babies her age
All very tiring but it's what makes her her.

However, over the past couple of days she has suddenly started hitting other children, DP & myself in the face. She lunges at our faces and pinches / scratches, often unprovoked. when i try & tell her it is wrong & put her on the floor away from me she cries. When she calms down & i cuddle her she does exactly the same thing again. This went on repeatedly yesterday!
Yesterday at playgroup she did it to most of the children there - if they had a toy that she wanted, one poor girl was in the playhouse that dd wanted to go in (there's plenty of room for 2 or more)and she lunged at her.
It seems very calculated (though i know they are incapable of this at this age??) and i am just worried that she is turning into a nasty bully.
What do i do? I need to nip this in the bud..

I think that they all go through a stage of hitting people, especially at playgroups and things, because they don't know any other way of communicating that they want a toy or whatever. My two dds both did it and it didn't last long.

I used to put them on the step or in the corner every time away from whatever it was that they were doing.

With hitting you it sounds like she is trying to get a reaction. I would put her down and then get on with something else and try to get her to understand that she is not going to get any attention from it.

It will pass and soon somebody else's child will be whacking yours in the face!

sorry no great advice but can totally sympathise - my ds has been like this since about that age and he is nearly 2 - it has gotten a lot better but its v hard to discipline effectively as although we have found at home that a stern "no" and then ignoring it is the most effective thing, when at playgroups etc it is obviously not acceptable to just ignore your child hitting another one (well thats how i feel anyway!).
Basically at playgroups/around other kids i keep pretty close by to ds and am ready to remove and distract him as soon as i can see him thinking about hitting...i also try to get him to apologise to the other child but sometimes making too much of a deal about it makes it worse as he gets more annoyed and will hit more.
we bought a great book called "toddler taming" (which is also v funny in places) where the guy basically says that all negative toddler behaviour comes from a desire for attention, and although this grates with me a bit i have noticed that ds is a lot more friendly to other kids if i have sat and played with him for a while.
However, this is still not a solved problem for us so will be very happy if others have any better ideas!
It has really demoralised me as a parent though - i always think other parents must think we are really aggressive with him/each other when actually we are very pacifist in our views! So anyway.. here is my sympathy! x

my dd had a phase of this at a similar age (or perhaps a month or two older)...sometiems because of frustration and sometimes just out of the blue...
was worried by it at the time, kept telling her no etc but wasn't too sure what to do about it. In the end I realised she had stopped doing it at some point!

she is doing it again now at 2.5 but that's an entirely different matter...

Fairylights - I have bought "Toddler Taming" but not read much of yet as am always too tired once I get some peace!
I also agree that it is so difficult when it comes to other people's children. I feel like they are judging ME.
In fact on another note, a few months ago dd was "playing" with some friends from my ante natal group. She snatched a toy off a little boy who then proceeded cry so much that he regurgitated the biscuit he had been eating. When dh arrived to pick us up i said "DD made poor Harry cry". His mother repeated "She made poor HARRY Sick!"
The look she gave me made me feel like i had no control over my dd, and was a terrible parent.
She is, however an utter COW {wink}

mewbilly - bless you, i have had a couple of experiences like that (one on friday in fact ..)and it is just AWFUL isn't it?! Although its horrible for you i am glad there is someone else out there who has a child like mine!
To be honest Toddler Taming doesn't address hitting specifically (i think?) but its more the general message of the book.. have a read of it if only to give you a laugh at some of stories about the kids he has worked with! I do hold onto one sentence from the book where he says something like "be reassured that even the most unpleasant toddler can turn into a wonderful charming adult"..
here's hoping!

CatisSleepy - forgot to ask, what is your strategy with a 2.5 year old?! Seeing as we ae heading in that direction..

I think she is just very demonstrative and sometimes maybe can't quite get across what she is trying to "say" (although sometimes she does hit completely out of the blue, like when she's sat on my knee).
I just don't want to get into the situation where other mums avoid me or strategically steer their child away from mine for fear of what she might do to them! I would hate for others to think of her as being an aggressive bully because she can be really funny and entertaining.
As my friend was saying, she had recently seen a tv prog where they were saying that babies who are very high maintenance (ie.Difficult!) are often highly intelligent!
I'm hanging on to that hope

yes, a friend of mine who is a psychologist also told me that.. and actually ds (who will be 2 on tues) has an amazing amount of language for his age and compared to his peers so we are also holding onto that hope . Although we did think maybe when he got talking he wouldn't feel the need to hit so much but annoyingly it doesn't seem to have made much difference Ah well!

DD was a v demanding baby and toddler and did quite a bit of hitting at that age. She is now 3 and thankfully in last few months it has massively reduced.

I think it was often through frustration and not being able to understand her strong emotions, or just pure frustration - unable to cope at that age with not being able to have the toy she wanted immediately she wanted it.

I found that tiredness or hunger were the biggest causes to look out for and tried to avoid playdate or toddler groups when she was particularly tired.

Something else that worked at times was telling her if she needed to hit to hit a big cushion instead of a person - easier to do at home.

fairylights-sorry didn't see your q til just now
if dd stops hitting as soon as I tell her to, and apologises right away then i will just tell her that I don't like her hitting, it makes me sad, please don't do it again etc
if she carries on and won't stop, if we're at home or someone else's house i will take her out into the hall and have her sit on the stairs and leave her there for a minute or so (minus her clothy ie muslin cloth she uses for comfort). Then go back with the cloth and get her to say sorry and have a cuddle etc. and give her the same spiel as above...

i think dh is a bit softer than me and less likely to do the 'time-out' bit...

agree with whoever said it's worse when they are tired and/or hungry so will cut her more slack if this is the case