Can you teach an 11 month to be gentle?

[lobsters]

DD (11mo) likes exploring faces, by pulling lips, pinching noses, sticking fingers up noses, sticking fingers in eyes, pinching throat etc. Is there anything I can do to make her more gentle, it's really starting to hurt! I've tried saying "no" that works with other things, but not with this. Any good techniques?

stroke her face gently and then guide her hand to stroke your face, this can be done in fornt of a mirror as well and she will learn to be gentle

We did the same as gothic, also saying "ahhhhhh" (as you would for something sweet and nice, not something scary!). Now at 1 year and 2 weeks DD will stroke furry cushions and teddy bears etc saying "ahhhh". I'm not sure it will last though, her kisses come flying at you with an open mouth!

The pulling and poking is developmental, though, so your DD will probably grow out of it, lobsters.

we took dds hand and rubbed it gently on something and said 'gentle'. Also showed dd that being gentle was nice by asaying 'lovely' cuddles' etc.

If she was being orough we would say 'is that gentle'? and she (generally!) would revert to gentlenes....

However. They are little ....

yes, I think so. took a while, but DS learned to stroke the dogs very gently, saying ahhh all the time. Enforce good behaviour when he is gentle, remove when he is not. Above all, show him what you mean (stroke his cuddly toys, gently cuddle them, etc)

He's 2 now and knows exactly what 'gently' means.

Like others here, we have taught our DD "gently" by taking her hand and stroking it slowly. We have a dog and we needed her to understand that you have to be "gentle" with the dog.
She does still whack the dog occasionally but knows it's wrong and understands when we say "gently".