I have a biter! Yesterdays advice was slap him on his mouth!

[Amapoleon]

Ds nearly 3 is going through a biting stage, so far he is only biting me. Yesterday at play group I was advised by another mother to slap him him hard on his mouth.

Mmm, Lets see shall I use violence against my child! Hahaha, I think not!

So can anyone give me some better advice. Thanks.

I would personally pick him up calmly and say "do NOT bite me" and remove him from the room / whatever you were doing together for 3 minutes. It needs to be done EVERY time, he will get the message that doing this makes him excluded from the fun.

well... I know it's contravercial but,

When I was a child I went through a stage of biting.

One day my mum bit me back.

I didn't do it again.

I am trying the removing but perhaps I am not being consistent enough.

Wannabe, my dad recommended that but it's not my way. Thanks anyway.

I would remove him from whatever situation has made him bite. At nearly 3 he is old enough to know it is wrong and be punished. I can't see how punching him in the mouth or biting him is going to help at all. Missing out on playing or having privileges removed is far more effective.

When ds did this and we were out at a friend's house etc I would take him home immediately and send him to his room. He soon got the message.

Just be consistent - remove him, say no very firmly, and wait until he grows out of it. Pay enough attention to get him away from teh situation and know that it's not good, but not too much attention.

You have my sympathy - DS3 was a biter. It was mortifying.

biting back or violence never works. my ds was a biter too. completely taking him away from the situation did work eventually.

it's so wearing

Thanks all, I must admit it is getting me down, I'm covered in bruises and feel a bit useless. My older dd went through this stage much earlier and we sorted it out very quickly. Ds is a far stronger willed child.

Ds went through it twice. Once at 18 months and again just before he turned 3. The second time really annoyed me because he was copying the behaviour of a same aged child at his CM's and the CM and child's parents weren't dealing with it. It meant that no matter what I did he would get bitten at the CM's and then repeat that behaviour when he was me. The only way I solved it that time was threaten to remove ds from the CM's if she wasn't going to speak to the other parents about their child.

It is incredibly wearing and embarrassing when they do it at the age of your ds. Removing ds really did work though. He soon realised that if he did bite then whatever activity he was enjoying would be curtailed immediately. Limited our social life for a while.

Thanks, Mollie I'm definitely going to have a crackdown, luckily it is only me he is biting. I want to crack it before he takes a fancy to another child's arm.