1 year old tantrums

[Elodieboop]

I’ve got a 13 month old who has developed a habit of kicking off if he doesn’t want something or doesn’t get his own way. If he doesn’t want anymore food he throws it very wilfully on to the floor. If you take something off him he goes into full scream mode. He bites - and my god it hurts- and has now started slapping.
I wasn’t expecting this sort of behaviour so young and I don’t really know how to handle it. It seems to be constantly rather than just occasionally so my patience runs out quickly but I don’t want to be “telling off” a baby. I try distracting him which has mixed results but sometimes it’s just exhausting. Is it normal for this age?

Sounds perfectly normal for a 12 month old unfortunately. Both of mine got a lot better once they could communicate better. At this age they seem to understand a lot but have difficulty making themselves understood. We found that using some simple baby signs helped, words like milk, more, yes, no, Mum, Dad and anything special to them for instance if you gave a DDog.

If he's throwing food on the floor I'd assume he's no longer hungry. If you eat together and you've finished eating, I would just clean him up and get him out if his high chair. If you're still eating just benignly ignore him. The trouble is at this age they'll do anything for attention so if you get upset or angry, he'll do it all the more.

Tantrums are pretty standard too I'm afraid, I used to ignore them when they were screaming in the floor and go and make a cup of tea. Sounds a little harsh but they actually soon stopped and came to see where I was.

The hitting and biting needs to stop though. Dr Sears has done very useful tips here.