Just that, really. DS has just turned 2 and has started biting. There were a couple of incidents in nursery a few weeks ago which I don't know the full details of, but were dealt with at the time. Then he tried to bite his friend in front of me at playgroup because she was in his way. I made him have a time out and then modelled saying sorry to his friend. Bit of a lull, then some biting started at home - mostly me, occasionally his dad. Most of his bites to me haven't been particularly hard - in fact some of them have been so gentle (over clothing) that if I'd not been looking down I wouldn't have realised he was doing it.
I always tell him 'no' in a firm voice, I say that it's not kind to bite, that it hurts people, and that it makes them feel sad. I also ask him to either say sorry or to give me a cuddle to show that he's sorry.
Today at nursery he bit two children - one quite hard - and then tried to bite a third. This was over the course of a whole day. Nursery gave him a time out and wouldn't let him rejoin play until he had apologised to the child. Apparently he was very stubborn and it took ages to get an apology out of him. When I put him in the car to go home I talked to him about it quite seriously and said that I was really sad to hear that he'd been biting children, etc. etc. Then I moved on and asked him about the fun things he'd done at nursery. However, when he got home he was very keen to talk about the incident. He could relay quite a lot about it, including the child's name (which nursery didn't tell me), where he had to sit during his time out, and what he had to say in order to go back outside and play again. It obviously had made a big impact on him and he was able to tell me that it made him feel sad. So that is something. But why does he keep doing it? And how do I stop him from doing it?
What worries me additionally, is that he talks about things like this - or does them - and then immediately asks 'Funny?'. He knows it's not funny, and he knows I'm not going to say it's funny, and yet he asks me anyway with a cheeky little grin on his face. It makes me feel that he doesn't really understand that biting is something he seriously shouldn't do.
Am I giving appropriate consequences? Am I using the right language with him? WHY has he started biting all of a sudden? Is this fairly normal? Or is it a sign of more trouble to come?
Please share your experiences of bitey two-year-olds!