biting - targeting one child

[lovelymama]

Just picked DD (nearly 16 months) up from nursery and was told that she's still biting (has been going on for a couple of weeks) but now she's targeting one child and is biting him/her really badly. Understand that this is a serious issue and I'm happy for them to discipline her in the way that they are doing.

However, what I'm quite shocked at is that they're saying this isn't normal behaviour as she's not doing it out of frustration/because other child has taken a toy from her etc, she's just doing it because she feels like it. They had quite a stern conversation with me today and said that she can't be left alone and in the New Year the nursery owner will be closely observing her to find out why she is only biting this particular child. I'm possibly over-reacting but I don't understand how a 16 month old could have the idea of bullying? I want to work with the nursery to get through this phase but they way they were talking was like it was the worst situation they had ever come across.

DD has older DS aged 3 years and is used to playing with him and older children, but they always play in a fairly friendly way and there is no biting at home or in other social situations.

The nursery is gradually moving DD from the baby room to the toddler room and they said that when she's in her weaning sessions in the toddler room she doesn't bite. This to me says that she's bored in the baby room and the biting is part of that.

Any thoughts?

I work in a nursery and within that age range, and it is very common for children to bite, i wouldn't be overly worried. A few years back we had a child who was a big biter, he generally bit any one who crossed his path but then he did start "targeting" one child in particular, we assume it was because that child wasn't walking so never moved off and also because he never retaliated any way we shadowed the biter and attempted to prevent bites that way, we also gave him teethers during his play, and also when he went to bite, to try and get him to link that with biting, we also sat him away from the play in a mini timeout so he would get an immediate negative reaction when biting.

Well whatever it was that made him bite (we assume lack of language development, but who really knows) stopped and he went back to being his usually lovely self again. And he and the 'victim' actually became the best of friends with no long lasting affects.

Hopefully in the new year, she will move rooms and the biting itself will resolve .

Why are the nursery allowing her to continue biting? They should be shadowing her to ensure it can't happen.

thanks ladies - you have both pretty much mirrored what i was thinking and it's helped me rationalise the situation after an evening of worry, thinking it through and mocking the conversation i'm going to have with the room leader tomorrow.

i'm going to ask them how they are going to prevent DD from biting until she moves rooms - as much as DD should't be biting, she's tiny so doesn't understand and they need to be there to prevent a situation occurring. My main concern is that she doesn't bite the poor little chosen DC but also to protect my DD from being focussed on for what I see as a fairly normal development stage.

thanks again

in my opinion its really common for them to bite the same child, which should make it easier to shadow and intervene. biting is a part of normal development for some children and soon passes if responded to correctly. you sound like a great parent and as a nursery nurse I'd be grateful of your support.