Biting at nursery - is my sister right to be concerned?

[Enid]

My niece (15 months) has been bitten three times (by different children apparently) over the last four weeks at nursery.

The nursery staff say its a normal phase in behaviour and there is nothing they can do about it.

I don't have much experience of nursery at this age but it seems to me (and my sister) that there must be something they can do? We understand its a 'phase' but does that mean that my niece and sister have to put up with it?

Dsis has spoken to the staff who make her feel as though she is being overly paranoid.

How would your sister want the nursery to deal with it? I assume they are showing the biters that biting is not acceptable in some way or another

I personally think that biting in the under 2s is difficult to prevent, but that the staff can react in a way that shows the behaviour to be inappropriate- but I would also expect it to take a long time to work. The youngest child in ds2's nursery (aged 2) is currently going through a hitting phase. She hit ds3 when we went to pick up ds2 and the staff reaction (a loud "no" and removal to another room) swung into place. They do it every time she hits, but she's still doing it- it will stop eventually.

If I send my child to nursery then I expect the odd incident to happen. I wouldn't be all that surprised by 3 bites in 4 weeks.

I would also expect an appropriate response to be taken by the nursery (as described by others on here). I would expect the nursery to have an incident book as well- think someone's mentioned that already. If the nursery are doing that and biting is continuing then your sister has a choice- she either lives with the fact that her child is going to get bitten or she takes her child out of nursery and leaves her with a nanny.

IME both ds1 and ds2 have been through phases at nursery where they seem to come home every day with something- fingers trapped, heads bumped, scratches and pinches, and then whole periods of months when nothing happens at all.

As a childminder having loked after a biting chld who bit my daughter I know that however vigilent you are sometimes you are not going to be able to stop it - although a lot of the time you can. I was extra vigilent when the boy was biting but sometimes he was just playing and then he would lean over and bite to fast to stop. I know ts hrid but it was a phase and with time out and aproriate verbal response he stopped. It was worse when actively teething

dd3 had this one taped - she started biting but started biting herself - noone else lol!

Nursery dealt with biters by making them sit down immediatly for a requistie time out and fussing the injured party - am not really sure how they dealt with dd lol!

ds1 bites himself- it is much easier!!! He pinches himself as well, which I much prefer to other people. And hits himself. Unfortunately he only kicks me (but then I guess he might fall over if he tried himself). :o

PMSL- I am still laughing about it as well.

My Mum has him out in the street at the moment. I can hear him shouting "oun oun" (up up) which means he is dropping his pants again. I'm sure the neighbours will love it. That one came out of nowhere to favourite activity of the week. Thank god it's school next week, they can spend the day telling him to pull his trousers up.

DS1 keeps coming nack from school with scratches on his neck. A boy in the class is in love wth him and keeps cuddling him - but he's a bit unsteady on his feet. Ah well at least he has a friend. I met his mum recently and apparently he goes home and says ds1's name over and over again (she hadn't worked out what he was saying until she saw them together).
How's your dd getting on with her bus friend?

right that will totally confuse her

she texted me to say that she was unable to work as hooked on mumsnet though

I would be PO with the nurseries attitude tbh. Yes, biting does happen but that does not make it OK. The nursery has a duty to keep the children safe, and whilst it cannot prevent biting from happening it can discipline the children and limit these phases so they don't become behaviour.

You should write a book on your method WCL - you would make a fortune. I would buy it.

Actually the 2 names have a nice ring to them Fio. It would make a great title for a children's book.

DS1's entire vocabulary atm is the words we use when he does something hideous. We have the up I mentioned earlier the "ayaown" (hands down) "an" (no) He can't say I'll put you outside the room or that would be in there too :o

yes, I would be concerned. whilst accepting that biting is normal behaviour/a phase, this seems like a large number of incidents in a short time, which might suggest a lack of proper supervision.
In her situation I would speak to staff again and see what they plan to do to reduce the risk of this happening again.
(btw dd1 was in nursery at this age).

DS got bitten quite a bit for a while but that was largely because he had/has a habit of trying to stick his fingers in other people's mouths and it took him a while to twig that it's not necessarily a good idea with his fellow under-twos. I think he was bitten two or three times like that over a period of about two months but from discussions with nursery staff I know that they headed off a lot more incidents by catching him when he looked as though he was going to go in with the fingers, and he seems to have got over it now.

He's only been bitten once apart from that (on the underside of his shoulder, which I think showed great physical ingenuity on the part of the biter). I think by and large it's just a function of the age group, but if there were three "proper" biting incidents in four weeks I'd be a little concerned about supervision levels -- I wouldn't go in all guns blazing (to borrow standard MN phase) but I'd ask a few questions, although if the nursery seemed to be tackling the problem well and have the right attitude I'd accept it as one of those things.

LOL, JimJams, can I detect a note of sarcasm, hmmmm???

So far as biting goes my method, as a parent, would be to say to the biter "no biting, teeth are sharp and they hurt, see, feel your teeth, they are sharp aren't they?" and I would also obviously comfort the child who was bitten and do what was necessary (savlon etc if needed).

My DS was relentlessly attacked by my neice when we spent time together and my SIL did nothing about it, everything was written off "as a phase" when in actual fact my neice did go through the typical phases of hitting and biting but was never disciplined and so these "stages/phases" are now how she behaves and she is a right little cow at age 5.5.

With my kids I tell them off, show them cause and effect from an early age (with a which came first the chicken or the egg theory). My son was a rugby tackler and my daughter a hair puller but I never let them get away with it and dismissed what they did as phases as that would not be fair on the "victim" or ultimately them.

Anyway, I digress, but I am entitled to post my perspective - and I would be PO with the nursery, saying there is nothing they can do is so lame, they are the professionals and should be more proactive about discipline and less dismissive of the mothers concerns imo.

Well it depends what the nuresry are saying- I doubt very much they are completely ignoring it, I can't believe any nursery would do nothing. Common problems should have strategies in place. I took the nursery's response to mean that they can't fully prevent children being bitten.

The point I was making- is that even with the correct response in place these things can take time to work through, especialy in children who are unable to reason, or unable to fully understand that others have feelings separate from their own. My son officially has challenging behaviour- I know from my experience of dealing with those, and working with the professionals to deal with those that whatever strategy in the world is employed it takes time, and sometimes you do have to accept that these things can take a long time.

The nursery here may be responding entirely correctly- it's not clear from the opening post. DS1's nursery was very very up on behaviour- they did stop his pinching very quickly (2 weeks) using an appropriate response (whereas mainstream school made a right pigs ear of it and then had the cheek to complain about it), but this very good nursery with a fill time 1:1 aid also told me they could not prevent it.

There appears to be a tendency on mumsnet to think that if you do x y and z then the problem will go and if it hasn't gone then it must be the parents fault. Life very often isn't like that.

If I was Enid's sister I would ask what procedure they follow for biting incidents. If I was happy that a reasonable system was in place I would accept it as one of those things.

"There appears to be a tendency on mumsnet to think that if you do x y and z then the problem will go and if it hasn't gone then it must be the parents fault. Life very often isn't like that."

Perhaps it very often isn't, but it also very often is IME. There seems to be a problem at the moment with discussing the possibility that it is sometimes, or might be.

We live very different lives FrannyandZooey.

Yes, we all do. We are all individuals and our circumstances are all unique.

"The nursery staff say its a normal phase in behaviour and there is nothing they can do about it."

That is what I read. My responses are, as a rule, based on the information given. I don't think I have inferred the parents are to blame so I am not sure what this is about:

"There appears to be a tendency on mumsnet to think that if you do x y and z then the problem will go and if it hasn't gone then it must be the parents fault. Life very often isn't like that."

However I certainly do agree with "you do have to accept that these things can take a long time".

WCL- I was reading too much into your original- nurseries can limit this so it doesn't become behaviour. I do think- especially with things like biting- that sometimes whatever strategy you use you can't stop it until it has run its course. I was just trying to emphasise that often there are no magic solutions and it takes time, time and more time.

Anyway suspect I shall find out soon, neither ds1 or ds2 bit, but I noticed ds3 going for ds2's arm today. He's going to be doing 1 day a week at nursery from Sept- he'll be the youngest there- so I hope that the biting phase - if we do end up with one- has gone by then.

Ah, OK, cos I am one of the least judgemental people when it comes to how other parents parent.

With your DC, it probably won't come to that. I also think it's important not to label the biter as "a biter/naughty" or whatever as they are so impulsive and not necessarily being malicious. Often its jsut a case of trying to instigate play but not having the verbal skills to get another kids attention.

Oh yeah, he's only 17 months. He started to give ds2 a cuddle then noticed bare flesh...... He's a feisty little number though, doesn't hesitate to get into a scrap with 7 year old ds1 (and he usually wins).

TBH there is so much challenging behaviour going on in this house that I am very practiced at the considered response. Not that it works all the time. Lost my temper with ds1 30 mins ago. I heard him get out of his room- but the time I got upstairs he was sat in ds3's cot naked and laughing. Very cross with myself for losing my temper though as that is going to be the new "joke" now I know it, and unforuntately it is dangerous. ds3 is almost back asleep (being rocked right now).

From biting to naked cot raids! at least that won't happen at nursery.

Hehehe, you hope!

You certainly sound like you've got it all under control :)

in control is not a phrase often applied ot this household :o