Getting a 17 month old to understand ’no’?

[HardonCollider]

I need some tips please as I feel like a bit of a failure right now. My LO has been a bit grabby recently (hair, cheeks, anything grabbable really). This is usually when tired. I say ‘no’ using a stern voice and usually move her away. She seems to think this is a game and comes back for more 😬 what should I be doing to help her understand?

make it so that she is unable to reach.

say you are holding her and she pulls your hair. you put her on the floor with or without commentary. (sometimes without words is fine)
she might cry or wants a hug you pick her up.
then she grabs you face so you put her on the floor again

repeat until she gets the message.
they learn better from actions rather than words at any age. never forget that

Stop saying no.

This is usually when tired

Comfort. Distract. Praise good behaviour. Just remove the hand that’s grabbing and focus on something else.

Think about how difficult you find it to function when you’re tired, and then add to that the inability to talk and the inability to understand this big new world

Also, the more you say no, the more meaningless it becomes.

You just have to keep doing it in my experience and it takes weeks for them to understand; the moving them away is more effective than the word no.

Thank you, this is all very useful 😊 I think I’ve defaulted to when I was trying to stop cats from misbehaving 😂