Biting at nursery - so worried!

[Heather1977]

My son Louis is 19 months old and started at nursery in the mornings about 6 weeks ago. After initial tears (both his and mine!) he seems to really love it there now. However his behaviour is not great and he has been consistently pushing and biting since he started.
They are v good at dealing with it there, and put him on the naughty stair for a time out to think about things.
I know this can be normal at this age but I find it really devastating! I don´t want him to be the bully of the class and all the children to be scared of him!
I think he is frustrated bc he can´t talk yet as we are bringing him up bilingually and it´s taking him a while to express himself. is this a common reason?
Also, they are about to move him up to an older class as he is the biggest in his class - does this usually help??
Thanks so much.

We are in a similar position.

Personally I would ask them what other methods they use appart from Time Out. DD has been the one being bitten in the past and is now doing similar things herself. I am sure that they all go through this stage. I am not convinced about TO though at such a young age. I have a meeting tonight with ours to discuss it. I will let you know if they tell me anything new

Thanks, let me know! I kind of agree with you about the TO - he certainly doens´t seem to be learning from it! When he bites at home - its usually when he´s v excited and playing. he has also been bitten
pretty badly but I feel much worse when he doing the biting!

I think it is frustration. DD communicates with us quite well but when there are a lot of other Children about she gets cross after a while, a bit fed up of sharing toys and attention so she starts snatching and pushing etc.

At home I just remove her from the situation and give her something else to do. She really loves her little friends really so I don't think it is vindictive, just a learning phase I am hoping!

Hi I don't know if this helps at all but my MIL used to own a nursery. Whenever they had a child that persistently bit they subsequently discovered that the child had problems with their ears and in some cases needed grommets. Might be worth exploring.

THE NAUGHTY STAIR????????

Timeout is one thing (although at his age if he doesn't "get" the concept then it's a waste of time) but the naughty stair/step is a definate no-no.

Yes it's frustration mostly as they can't articulate their feelings. The staff should be watching him closely & intervening if he lunges & encouraging happy interactions prasising him if he is kind to his playmates.

Does he have a keyworker you can talk over strategies with?

We have had biters at our nursery
but they always grow out of it, don't worry!

DS (2 next week) is going through a biting phase, and we had a behaviour management meeting this week to discuss things. Nursery manager says that it is a very common toddler thing, and is usually part of the 'more understanding than communication' phase they go through. They remove from the situation, have a couple of minutes relective time, and at the moment are trying signing 'sad' to him and signing that the other child is hurt (DS signs and the nursery staff have been learning some). This seems to make it much more real to him, as I think that he didn't really understand what happened to the other person before.
They are also shadowing DS and another biter and keeping them a little apart (like moving their chairs a bit further away from others at lunchtime) when they know that it is a flashpoint.

I do feel really bad about it, but know he'll grow out of it soon

Just out of intrest do they call it the naughty stair or was that just what you were calling it?

They shouldnt use the term naughty at all and I would be very annoyed if they were

Heather - As promised I am reporting back in having talked to our Nursery.

They use Time Out as a little calming down time outside of the main group activity. DD was taken over to sit with her carer separately from the group so she could calm down. They explained it in a more detailed way - I had imagined a 20m old sat in the corner on her own but it was not like that so I feel much better!

They also never use the term naughty whenever possible as the Children have no concept at that age. I feel better for talking it through, I would definately look into meeting his keyworker for a chat.

Hello everyone,
Thank you so much for your replies. We actually live in Spain so théy don´t call it the "Naughty step" as such, they just sit him down on the step nearby so he can reflect.
To be honest, I am really happy with how they are dealing with it at nursery. They are patient and intercept before it happens. We had our 4 year old twin neighbours round this afternoon and he was also trying to bite them. he was laughing and really excited so he still thinks it is all part of the game. We are really trying to get through to him that it hurts others but it´s not getting through...!
Im sure it´s just a phase but it´s so difficult...

My ds was like this as a toddler for a long time. I tried lots of things, in the end I met someone who was a HV specialising in behavioural problems. Her advice was not to let him wander too far from me so lets say you're at a friends having a coffee while the dc's are playing - you stay v close. Then if he goes to bite, you swiftly intervene remove your child calmly saying 'no biting'. You just keep doing it. It was a total drag for me as I already had another two toddlers, but I kept it up and I think it took only two weeks and yipee cracked it. He'd been biting for a very long time before that.

Thanks Scanner that reassuring

Heather - Have you tried signing with him? DD knows the sign for Hurts and if she hits/bites we sign it to her with a sad looking face. We are not there yet but all her other signs have clicked so I am hopeful