Biting incidents at nursery

[dove1991]

Hello,

I'm looking for advice from other parents who have experienced their child being bitten multiple times at nursery by other children.

I would like to know:
How old were the children involved?
Was your child bitten?
If the child biting them was a known biter and was receiving support.
Was it just one child biting your child, or if it was several?
If it was multiple children, what did the nursery say about it?
What did the nursery do about the incidents?
Has it stopped?

I don't need to know the names or the context of the biting; I'm looking for information to present to my current nursery.

Thanks in advance.

When i worked in the toddler room ( 20mths to rising 3 ), we had one group of 4 biters. It was a nightmare tbh. One started it and 3 decided it was a good idea to copy. Mainly the biters, bit each other but occasionally got others. Trying to constantly monitor and interveen was hard work and it went on for several months. Luckily the parents were very understanding and knew we were doing our best to sort the situation but in a nursery you are very limited as to how you can deal with a biting child. I currently have a baby in the babyroom who has bitten a couple of times but they're teething so we make sure they have a teething ring or similar and it's slightly easier to monitor when it's only 1 child biting.

I did find that that the parents of the biters were mortified and very keen to stop their children biting. It was never minimised but solving it is never particularly straightforward. Toddlers lack impulse control, language development and reasoning. Combined with high ratios and staff trying to do multiple things, it's not as easy as "shadow the biters."

As a former nursery nurse i agree

Biting is one of those things some young children do and is a nightmare to deal with in a busy room on ratios of more than one. 1:4/1:3 dependant on age at the time. It’s not ignored and is taken seriously by staff but isn’t as easy to manage and happens so quickly.

It’s horrible having to tell a parent their child was bitten. Quite often by children they played with all the time.

I had a biter and a child who was bitten. Happened at ages 18 months to 36 months. It’s really common. Nursery needs to be alert and separate children. It will stop.

One of mine was bitten multiple times in nursery by the same child.

The nursery tried to intervene I think as soon as they realised the child concerned was a biter.

Yes it's stopped (child concerned is an adult now!)

It's one of those things - which isn't in any way to minimise your distress, or the distress of your child if they've been bitten, but it's very common, and it passes.

I think both my children were bitten at various points between 12 months and probably 3 years. And one of them bit another child at some point - that might have been when he was in reception aged 4 (and very tired by Fridays). I felt worse about my child biting than I did when they were bitten! Not a great feeling either way though.

The nursery / school won’t tell you who the other child is but once your child is old enough to communicate they will tell you themselves anyway.

I let the nursery deal with it. Never discussed with other parents. I spoke to my child when they were the biter (teeth are not for biting) but I don’t know if that made any difference.

My niece was bitten 3 times. Each time my sister was informed. The last time the bite broke her skin and my sister had to take her to A&E. The boy who did the biting seemed to bite 2 or 3 girls. The nursery never told my sister who the biter was but my niece told her and that he bit other girls too. My sister spoke to the Mum of another of his victims. The nursery did virtually nothing and just told her the biters parents had been informed each time. Someone was supposed to be watching the biter at all times but clearly failed. Safeguarding was an issue and my sister removed my niece and at the same time one of the other parents removed their DD and both girls went to the same close by, nursery where they were not bitten and I don't know about his final victim. The bitter remained at the nursery.

We had a biter when I ran a toddler room.
He bit without any reason that could be seen. Would just casually, but very quickly, bite and they were hard, deep bites. On the face if he was able!

After a meeting with my manager I shadowed him from when he arrived to when he left and basically did no other duties unless he was asleep, as it was so awful for the children bitten and parents were so upset.
I didn’t do any observations for my key children or putting coats on or tidying up while he was awake and with other children. I held him if I needed to chat/handover to a parent.
He was a lovely boy and we developed such a bond!

He stopped after a few weeks.

Your setting needs to do this.
But it depends if staff are committed to doing it and if the manager will agree to effectively ‘losing’ a staff member to this.

Thank you all for your responses, they're helpful.

For context, my daughter has been bitten 7 times in 9 weeks by both 'known biters' and by others. The nursery have noted that it is now a 'room problem'. not just an individual(s) issue.

I'm having another conversation with the nursery management this afternoon, and I wanted to know what we can expect to be normal at this age. Is 7 times in 9 weeks excessive?

We have been assured that measures will be put into place to protect her (as it seems she is being bitten the most, without understanding why as they have watched the CCTV footage), but these seem to be failing every time, and there are never any staff to witness the biting.

I would say that allowing a child to hurt others almost once a week is a massive failure in their duty of care.

Mine have both been the biters and bitees.

Happened between 1-2 years first child and 2-3 years second child.
My children learnt to bite after being bitten several times first. Although they only did it once or twice themselves. They were bitten I'd says a handful of times over a 6 week period. Oldest bit to show affection, youngest when she was bitten first.
No idea if the biters of our children were the same in each instance. We were not told and I didn't ask as it stopped after a few weeks. All but one bite was no longer visible when I collected later in the day.
They always raised it with us with the context but the context was never the same so all they could do was monitor. There were no triggers to show they were about to be bitten, not normally arguing with another child or anything.
It stopped naturally after a few weeks / months (probably 2 months ish).

I didn't really have much of an issue each time as

1. the context was always different
2. I was never told it was the same child (I guess I would have if it had been a pattern)
3. there was never a mark left by pick up. If any of these had been the case I would have raised it further. Both times it seem to do like a round robin of all the children then settle down once they all understood it wasnt acceptable.

First dc was only once at 3 yrs old by a known biter. He was bit on the face, and it left teeth marks and bruising.

Second dc has been bit 3x in the last 6 months in the baby room. All different babies. All similar ages circa 12m. 2x face but didn't leave much of a mark and 1 x shoulder which drew blood and bruised badly.

Second dc is a biter but only with me! He has never biter anyone else. If he decides to bite me it's on the face or fleshy bit of my upper arm.

Babies bite, especially when teething. It is upsetting even more so if an older baby does. The nursery runs at 1:3, they always seem present and with the children for the most part. (We have never announced/notified when we're picking up)

It's something I can't get upset about. At that age and stage, they have no reasoning or impulse control. They are doing what they are programmed to do. All we can do as parents is give boundaries, monitor and redirect, and once old enough introduce consequences.

Sorry I forgot to add that my daughter isn't a baby, she's almost 2 years old with other toddlers.

At that age it is fairly common and often happens very quickly, even with an adult nearby. I know from our oldest 2 at home and I was on the floor beside them!
As a previous poster said, at that age they don't have the language, impulse control or emotional regulation to express themselves adequately and it can often happen over a frustration that may not be obvious to those observing.
I would expect the nursery to be putting some sort of plan in place to support the biter and to endeavour to keep the other children safe - but aside from separating a small child from their peers there's no completely infallible plan unfortunately.

Nursery staff hate it when a child gets bitten as much as the parents do and they usually do all they can to stop it but biting generally happens so quick and without a trigger that it can be tricky to intervene fast enough even if someone is beside them.

Biting is common between about 18mths and 2.5yr as toddlers are still learning to regulate feelings and have little impulse control. These biters generally grow out of it within a few months as their communication improves. The most difficult biters to manage can be SEN children who lack communication skills for longer or have little awareness of how others feel. Some of these children can keep biting right into school.

There is usually no funding for a nursery to provide one to one but usually staff will shadow a known biter but unfortunately without one to one other children do need to have attention too if other incidents happen in the day. Strategies will include shadowing, objects to bite, avoiding triggers (ie if a child always bites in a certain area), if there are sharing issues a staff member will intervene and help. Reading books about biting can help understanding in typically developing children.

Talk to your nursery but calmly. They are probably already finding it stressful trying to manage the situation and will want to work with you to prevent it happening again.

I agree with others that biting is common at that age, but it seems like it's happening very often. Did they tell you what measures they put in place to prevent it from happening?

I was the mum of a biter, I was top choice but happened a few times at nursery. I had figured out some of her triggers it was always when teething and she didn't get her own way so an argument over a toy would potentially cause an incident.

I used to give them the heads up if she was teething and they would be on more attentive watch. I was always mortified when she did it. We had a book we always read after an incident and I know the nursery used it as well. She was 18 months to 2/3 when she did it.

I'm sure it was awful at the time but the idea of 4 rabid toddlers randomly biting each other all day has tickled me.

If there's several biters then it's tricky.
Say you have 12 toddlers, 3 biters and 4 staff - practically it's impossible to shadow all the biters all day.
It would mean one adult was changing all the nappies, dealing with all first aid, serving and cleaning away all meals and doing all activities.
You'd barely be able to get through a meal time and certainly wouldn't be able to do any art or story times, get everyone ready to go outside with a ratio of 1:9 under twos.

My daughter was both bitten and a biter. The child she was bitten by's trigger was hunger it happened once when I was in the room. I was dropping her off they were all at the table having breakfast and it had been before you knew it even though I was only concentrating on my child I didn't actually see the bite. Everytime she was bitten I felt so sad. She was 9 months old and the other child was 15 months old.
Then about a year later she became a biter her trigger was frustration she didn't have enough words for how she was feeling so she bit. I was mortified, but also I felt so sad that she had bitten another child. My daughter was 16 months old.
Nursery worked really hard on both occasions to prevent bites, but never fully managed it. The other child got bigger and learned to control their emotions when they were hungry, my daughter got more words and could say what she needed to.
My daughter is now a very compassionate and empathetic 21 year old.

A family member's child was biting and it turned out the child's father was sending her to nursery without lunch. This went on for 6 months because he mistakenly assumed nursery provides lunch but he had got the time wrong. So this poor child was having no lunch for 6 months!

I would not be happy that the staff never witness the biting. A bite can be very fast, so yes, sure, occasionally you might miss one, but particularly with known biters in a bitey phase, I would expect close enough supervision on them to generally see the bites, even if they can't intervene fast enough to stop it.

I'd expect more 'misses' with experimental biters now that it's a room issue – they can't possibly supervise every single child that closely.

How is your child about it? Is she becoming distressed about going to nursery?

I would also ask if you're otherwise happy with the nursery. Biting is hard to stop, as others have said, but it does generally run its course.

I’ve had a biter and one that got bitten. It’s very normal and the problem is it happens so quickly.

My little biter got his teeth early and would bite other children typically when they got too close and invaded his space or tried to take toys he was playing with. He was an early talker so the biting stopped fairly quickly as soon as he could communicate better. Nursery helped work with him on sharing.