Toddler hitting

[Wednesdayafternoon]

Please can someone tell me how I make this stop?
My son is turning 2 in a couple weeks and he's suddenly started hitting. He has a bit of a speech delay (if you want to call it that at this age) so he's not great at communicating but he's making some progress. He's an absolute dream boy - affectionate, cute, snuggly, just wonderful! But a couple months back he started hitting when upset and then it kind of dwindled. But now it's back with full force and he hits all the time. He hits when mad, for attention, when jelous... it's horrible! And it's embarrassing. People are so judgey and I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression of my little darling :(
I'm trying a firm NO which falls of deaf ears. I'm trying gentle approach too because i don't want to fight fire with fire... but it's just not going away :(

Any advice would be massively appreciated!

Gentle parenting doesn't mean no disciplining, it just means no shouting or hitting. If there are no consequences to wrong actions, why would he stop doing them?
Every time he hits, in addition to your strong and stern NO, you leave the room, leaving him alone out you bring him to his room and leave him alone there for a few minutes. He will lose it, and when you come back, you tell him, hitting is wrong, you hit you will be punished .

He will never learn the value of "no '" or " don't" if you don't give it value yourself.

‘No’ isn’t working on mine (same age/stage). Saying ‘ow’ and moving back works much better. My ds is beginning to understand that hitting others equals causing pain.

Fundamentally, he’s saying ‘listen to me’ so the ‘no’ response might not work as well. You’re going to have to listen to his body language because he can’t tell you what he needs right now (which is likely to be love and attention).

Remember it is just a stage, so maybe try some rough and tumble play to encourage boundaries and allow him the space to be physical. Kids can enjoy playing rough (like little lion cubs!) so by allowing him to be rough with you it’s actually really good for him, but then set the ‘ow’ boundary and sit back when it’s too much. It’s worked really well with mine and they love being able to have fun rough and tumble, but don’t have the built up frustrations of not being allowed. It’s also increased their empathy for others.

Plenty of attention will turn this around. He’s clearly a loving child, so don’t worry, it will get better.

My ds has started to do this too and he is just turning 2. It’s embarrassing as literally every time we are out he will hit another child and make them cry. Unfortunately I’m attached to a 6 month old dd who is breastfed so I can’t always get to him quick enough. I’ve tried saying NO firmly, getting down to his level and restricting his arms when I see an episode coming on. It’s absolutely exhausting but I’m bearing with it and hope it’s just a developmental thing (I suspect also jealous about his sister)

I think this is just a phase they go through. I would suggest trying to help him name the emotion he is feeling. Even if he can't say a lot you can ask him, "do you feel angry?" And then try to explain the situation. A great book that we got that completely stopped the hitting was "hands are not for hitting" would 100% recommend!

One thing that helps is to be proactive with their needs not reactive, so if there is a certain situation or time of day when this happens a lot trying to plan ahead for that.

But at the point they do hit, any kind of 'time out' or attention removal is quite effective for this age group, but only so long as it's don't immediately, consistently and not for too long. For some children a stern 'no' is enough, but it doesn't work for all of them and it doesn't work indefinitely.

Hey did this get any better? It’s happenin for me and it’s sooo stressful!