Help me with my toddler please?!

[Lavender14]

Ds is coming 2 and in general he is the sweetest funniest little dude and I'm very proud of him. But omg the hitting and throwing things is CONSTANT.

I know it's probably developmentally normal but I'm starting to really doubt that I'm making one iota of difference to it. I try hard to be consistent with talking about gentle hands, telling him other things he can do with his hands when he has big feelings, he's learnt deep breathing, I distract him with other things, I try not to react too much (he just laughs if I do), give him things he can safely throw but it's just endless. He bust my lip the other day smacking me hard in the face and today hit me hard in the face with a wooden block. I worry because my parents are doing my childcare and they're older and I know my mum has started to comment on how much he's hitting her as well during the day and he's a big strong boy for being almost 2. I also really worry about him aiming for the dog incase the dog reacts.

Am I missing anything? Is there anything else I can try?

A sharp and stern no. We dont hit its not nice. And then remove yourself from around him saying ow and looking sad

If he continues
If you hit me again then we arent going to read the book, the blocks (you hit me with) will have to be put away for 30 mins (use a timer), I dont want to play with you…so natural consequences

If he continues
Introduce the stop and think chair. If he does something that isnt nice or that he was told not to do,he has to sit on the chair (stop what he is doing) and think about why it wasnt a good choice. He needs to sit there until he is calm and then say sorry as an acknowledgement that he did something not nice/was asked not to do.

If he has a tantrum at the consequence, ignore the tantrum and continue the consequence, but when its over then go back to it being a normal nice day

Whats happening before he does this? If there’s no obvious trigger that you can work with, he may just be testing what the boundary is - ignoring his behaviour is therefore possibly not helping. I would say “we don’t hit. I won’t let you hit me - if you do that again you will have to play by yourself” Hold his hand if necessary. Then all the positive feedback if he moves on to less aggressive behaviours. But you definitely need a boundary here and some consequences your parents can also implement.
Obviously he is young to be understanding books but there are a few on hitting which may reinforce the boundary as he gets older.

Ride it out and don't make such a big deal about it. Despite what people say, all the methods mentioned above are just silly for such a young child. Ignoring and carrying on will get you much better results than any faddy discipline tactic that babies are just far too developmentally young to understand.

I can sometimes see that he's feeling something big just before. He might run about a bit more or get in some way worked up either with playfulness or frustration which is why I'd introduced the big breaths to help him calm himself down and he is really good at doing those but it's often happening out of nowhere so I'm usually doing the breathwork with him after he's started to lash out. I'm always very clear with him and use a calm, firm voice and say no we don't hit, I won't let you hit me, we use gentle hands, say sorry. And if I ask him to show me his gentle hands he will say sorry and stroke my face really gently and I'll praise him for it and two seconds later he's trying to blatter me again. I do think boundary pushing and playfulness is a big part of it and he'll giggle so I know he's not fully understanding the impact. We've also been working on what stop means. He'll say it and I'll stop what I'm doing and then I'll say it and he'll continue but I'm trying to build it up with games so he'll get the meaning and I can maybe use it too.