Argh 2 yr old biting other children at nursery!

[CharleeinChains]

My DS2 goes to nursery 2 days a week but the last 2 days he has gone he has badly bitten one of the other children. Thankfully the parents of these kids have been lovely about it but the teacher hasn't really.

The first time she was ok about it but today i walked in to pick the boys up to be greeted with 'your son has bitten AGAIN!'

Im not sure why he is doing it, he loves going and is always happy to run in at the begining of the day and get stuck in playing. He hasn't bitten at home for a very long time so im not sure what to do.

The staff at the nursery are putting him in time out at the moment which i am fine with, i am hoping it will work.

It has happened when one of the older children has taken something from him ie a toy or book and he has retaliated by biting, he has left some really nasty bruises on the children he has done it to.

Any advice on what i can do about this, i don't want ds to come across as a bully or a monster at the age of 2!

Anyone?

Think you need to get nursery on side and helping you here rather than acting like it's somehow your fault. We have the same issue with DD (16 months) (I think the line that made me cringe most at the last 1-1 I had with nursery was "the biting is getting much better - sometimes we have whole days when she doesn't bite").

Our nursery also use time out if she does bite, but also try and watch for situations where they know she may do so (e.g. usually if she gets overtired or excited) and try to avert them (firmly saying don't bite, removing her from the situation, or if she's really overexcited occaisionally taking her out of the group for a 1-1 story session etc). Push back to them, they are responsible for your son's care and the other kids while he is there, and they need to try and manage the issue not just punish afterwards. For what it's worth our creche also told me that while she can learn biting is not allowed now, until they are around 3-ish they don't really understand why it's wrong, they just learn that it's forbidden, hence the back-sliding sometimes.

My son is 2 and at nursery. He has on occasion bitten other children and has been bitten himself-sometimes quite badly.

Its completely normal-if unacceptable- behaviour in a 2 year old and your nursery sound a bit out of order.

Milkmades right that nursery staff should be trying to intervene in conflict situations before kids bite-not always possible I know. My nursery are great in that they let you know discretely if its happened and also that its a common problem.
Your son isn't randomly biting hes responding to certain situations that frustrate him by biting. Eventually he'll develop other ways of responding and in the meantime all you and the nursery can do is show him its not acceptable.

I know most of us would empathise with you and good luck

I know what you are going through. My DD is now 5, althouhg developmentaly is 3.5 - 4. She didn't really start talking until she started playschool at 3 so she used to bite loads due to frustration. As her speech improved her biting lessened. Her playschool used time out and as she was 3 she was learning why it was wrong, i.e. it really hurts and she hated being bitten, yes she wasn't alone at her playschool.
The playschool needs to be a bit more discreet , it's not your fault and you are definately not alone in dealing with this. Good luck.

Hi my DS1 goes to nursery 2 days a week also and went through a scratching phase - mainly over sharing things. The nursery did tell me when he'd done it but as others have said they only told me as they'd told him off and made sure I was telling him off if he did it too (which I was). My nursery doesn't tell parents which child has bitten/scratched/hit etc their child in order to avoid problems/embarrassment etc. They just say that they have been bitten and why if they know as DS has has been bitten/scratched on occassions by other kids at nursery so it happens.... It didn't last long - a few weeks but as with any anti social problems seemed like forever!

Quite normal and usually frustration that they can't verbalise 'excuse me but you've taken that toy from me and I hadn't finished playing with it' LOL!

He has now developed a 'hitting phase' which is not fun and now working on that with time out.