18 month old hitting

[eynjln]

Hi!

what are some good ways of dealing with hitting in 18 month olds?

she only really tends to hit when we are cradling her when trying to put her to bed, she doesn’t do it in a tantrum, she thinks it’s funny. She will smack us really hard in the face and gauge at our skin, we’ve never laughed when she does this so we don’t know why she thinks it’s hilarious!

any advice on how to respond to this behaviour would be very welcome

Side note:

she knows what gentle hands means as we have been teaching her since she was tiny. At the moment, the best we have found is to calmly put her down and leave the room for 20-30 seconds