15 month old hitting/ hair pulling at nursery

[Lockdownbaby2021]

hi all. posted on another topic but got no response. hoping better luck here!

second time mum here.
my little boy 15 months has started hitting and hair pulling at nursery: they've pulled me aside to tell me when picking him up the last couple of times. i have no idea where he's got it from as he doesn't watch any tv or anything. my first didn't start doing this until he was 2 years old which i knew was normal at that age, so this is a bit new to me. is this normal at such a young age? they said he's quite aggressive once he starts and obviously i feel awful and responsible😥Up until the last 2 months he was always so chilled, happy and kind and nursery said he was a dream and now he's always frustrated and angry. he has been unwell though the last couple of weeks with tonsillitis and a double ear infection along with teething. could this be why? or is this the new him from now on?

he doesn't do it much at home, only to his brother on the odd occasion if fighting over the same toy. and i respond with an 'ah ah' we do kind hands and show him by stroking his hand or his bears head gently. is this the right thing to do?

I’d want to know what the staff were doing to support him. He’s a baby, are they expecting you to discuss it with him over his bedtime story and make him see the error of his ways? What’s happening before the incidents? Is he engaged and playing or looking bored and needing interaction? Is he happy in himself or overwhelmed in a loud stressful environment? Have his needs been met or is he frustrated trying to communicate that he needs something? Behaviours serve as communication and don’t just come from nowhere, if staff insist there are no warning signs at all then the trigger could be pain? Hopefully they are recording incident reports that will help notice any patterns k what was happening before the incident and how they responded e.g was he on his own then pulled someone’s hair to get staff to interact with him? Or were staff busy making dinner and leaving him hungry and unsupervised at a busy transition time that could be difficult for him to manage?

yes that's a good point. next time he goes i will ask them if there's anything that triggers him. i know at home its when his brother is playing with something he's wanting to play with he will just go for him out of nowhere and pull his hair. to which i respond with the above

all they said today was that hes moving up to toddlers soon so theres lots of babies younger than him that he's going for. I feel awful. like i say he gets no screen time, even when his brothers watching it he's just not interested at all. Im hoping it's pain related due to teething/ his tonsils/ ears and not something hes going to do for the foreseeable. all i can think is that hes seen another child do it at nursery!

I feel for you OP, but as a parent whose daughter was at the hands of another child, hair pulling, biting or whatever else- it’s obvious your tactics aren’t working. I’ll admit he’s incredibly young to be doing this but your ah ah kind words aren’t having any effect. If it continues I imagine that he’ll be removed from nursery.

your comment seems a little scare mongering.

my first born was also the victim of being bitten when he first started nursery and i thought oh goodness my boy would never do that, but a month later he was the one hitting and was at the other end of it!

I don't see how a 15 month old would be removed for hair pulling? like the first comment said, he's still a baby. If i go in with full discipline and say 'NO we do not hit' surely all his going to hear is 'hit' and then continue??

the reason for my post was reaching out to see if any other mums experienced the same at a similar age and if it was a phase of illness or if it continued.

He needs to be told No firmly when he does it. The kind hands stuff obviously isn’t working. It’s okay to tell children firmly they shouldn’t be doing something.

It can be really developmentally normal for the age, it’s usually a frustration thing if speech isn’t quite there yet. He presumably can’t communicate verbally well enough yet to say “I want to play with that toy” so that anger/frustration comes out at it’s absolute base level of hitting/hair pulling to get what he wants.

The main things I’d be doing at home if I was you is firm boundaries, not just “ah ah kind hands” but rather if he is pulling hair to get a toy, he absolutely does not get that toy. If he does it to you/sibling then no sing song “no kind hands don’t hit” voice, playing with teddy’s together, a firm no and then ignore. He can’t understand your words properly especially your little sentences and teddy bear games, but he can understand that doing that gets absolutely nothing- not a toy, not your attention, nothing, and it loses its value then.

How do you know he's not learnt this off yoir older DC? That's what I've always noticed, some younger siblings are much more aggressive

Spare a thought for his victims. My niece was bitten so badly by a boy at nursery he broke the skin and my sister had to take her to hospital to be checked over. The same DC bit several of the girls repeatedly and nursery were supposed to be keeping a watch on him. After being bitten for 3rd time in 2 months my sister removed her as they couldn't safeguard her. The biter remained and continued biting. The person saying he'll be removed from nursery is delusional. The victims usually get removed if it isn't dealt with.

Hmmmm clearly he is learning that behaviour is ok somewhere..none of our 3 toddlers have ever done this and neither did my teens