Tips on dealing with 2yo slapping at people, mostly me!

[hophophippidtyhop]

dd,2.2, has just started to slap at our face, usually if we say no to something. I have been firmly saying,'no,do not slap me, it's not nice/I don't like it/ it hurts me', whilst pulling her hands away from me. This seems to work ok, but she sometimes treats it as a game, she doesn't seem to realise it's wrong. I have told her on a couple of occasions on the second time if she does it again, she will sit on the stairs for 2 minutes, and have followed through. After being on the stairs I give her a cuddle and say to her how much nicer a cuddle is. Probably it's just a phase and I need to persevere, but did you do anything else that seemed to work? Any other minor things she's done in the past Iv'e usually distracted her, given an alternative or a bit of reverse psychology, any way of doing similar to these,without doing the stairs thing?

It's a phase. I got walloped at one stage or another by my kids when they were a similar age and my SIL at the moment is having a problem with her dd doing the same - it often seems to be the mums who get the majority of slaps - maybe because often we're the ones with them the most!
You're doing the right thing by addressing it head on - she'll soon learn that it's not a nice thing to do and it's not acceptable and as long as you remain cosistent in giving her time out, she'll stop soon enough.
In the meantime, do as you have been doing and focus on all the positive things she does so that it doesn't feel like she's only getting negative attention. Good luck, it will pass!

Thanks, display. It's the first time she's done something that I've felt I've had to be tougher on, and first time I've sat her on the stairs. It is funny when she's out there and I can hear her polly parroting what I've just said to her, to herself. I figured now was a good time to introduce a 3 times and you go on the stairs in preparation for any other future telling offs!

I wouldn't give her a 3 strikes and out rule for slapping - send her straight to the stairs as soon as it happens as it's not acceptable to slap full stop so letting her do it 3 times before sending her to the time out zone might not reinforce it as strongly as you want it reinforced. With my ds2 I got a lot of slaps in reaction to being asked to do things or if I'd told him noff about something (and I got really walloped a couple of times)and like you, he'd never needed to go there until the slapping started but he had just become a big brother just 4 months previously and so I think it may have had something to do with that although tbh it's so common in this agegroup that he night well have done it even without the new baby! Good luck - and keep firm!

You're right, I think when I have given her a chance to stop, that's when she starts to think it's a game. I'll give it a go. Thanks!

Telling her that it hurts mummy is also a good thing to say as children that age can often relate to that and if it sinks in that it hurts you and might make you cry, she might think twice (or she might just laugh in your face, but you know what I mean!)
Good luck