DD (19mo) hitting herself and banging her head on purpose.

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Not sure what to do with her TBH. She hasn't actually hurt herself (yet) but for the last couple of weeks she has been hitting herself over the head and on her tummy and banging her head on things on purpose.

DD is by all accounts a very good child, she has her moments don't get me wrong, but most DC do don't they.

She sleeps well, is eating like a trooper, she gets loads of 1:1 with DH and I. We take her out and about as much as is poss and give her lots of praise when she has done something good.

I want to nip this in the bud now, before she actually manages to hurt herself. It is so random we cant figure out why she is doing it.

Not too sure if I can help but my dd does this to stop herself going to sleep. The advice I got from hv, doctor and people on here was to ignore it. Most people said she was doing to get a reaction from me and I guess at first I did try and stop her. It has pretty much stopped now but she'll do it if she gets out of routine or over tired.

Thanks confuzzeled, we do stop her and were wondering if she is doing it to get attention from us.

Will try to ignore from now on, unless she goes to bang her head on the wall or something like that!!

When she does it, it is so random, it can be any time of the day, only if we are at home though. She doesn't do it if we are out or at family and friends houses

Have a cousin who did this as a toddler but used to smack his forehead really hard onto a concrete floor when he was having a tantrum. He used to do it for attention as his mother was naturally terrified and used to pick him up and cuddle him - just as he wanted.

His mother said she had talked to doctor about it and he had told her he will stop doing it when he hurts himself. My cousin never cried and only used to hit the hard part of his forehead. He did stop.

My DS used to hit his head against the side of the cot when he was trying to get to sleep. He was about 15 months old. we took the cot down and he has slept in his bed ever since. I think he was really frustrated. I also took him to see a cranial osteopath, this worked really well and have taken him a couple of times since.