pulling other children's hair...

[AliGrylls]

my 8 month old has always had a thing for hair and has always pulled mine. Until recently this was fine, it was not very hard and in some ways quite sweet.

However, now he does it really hard and has started to do it to other people's children. The problem is that I have started to tell him no and recently I have had to pull him away from friends baby's when he has done it to them. He made one baby cry yesterday and today he was desperately trying to pull another baby's hair. In the end I just kept him away from the child and he did become a little ostracised as the other babies played.

My question is, am I doing the right thing re other babies? When I told DH about what happened he said that I should be careful and that I should allow him to explore other babies as this is how they make friends. Is he right?

This might be controversial but my daughter was a biter at that age and didn't understand "no" so we did the ignoring thing and the distracting thing until she really bit our son and made a hole. My partner and I discussed it and decided that next time she bit someone whichever of us was there would bite her, no where near as hard as she could bite but obviously she had to feel it. It worked and because she stopped biting we were able to mix with other kids comfortably and ultimately she was happy in the end.
I must stress that her skin was not marked from the bite and that we did not act out of anger. It was an appropriate action.

That sounds like a solution but he has no hair to pull.

AliG - I think the trouble is at 8mo he'll not obv not understand what is right and wrong - not remember that it was wrong last time so will be wrong this time. I think he'd just be driven to act on impulse, see what it feels like, what reaction he gets etc...

Is it something you can talk to your HV about? I mention merely because one of our HVs ran a parenting class therefore they have an idea of development and what happens at different stages, what is likely, and how best to manage them.

Sorry can't be more help. I currently have a problem with DS 2.5yo pushing other children, so it's something that will crop up in different ways at different stages, lol...

Gawd if he was 8 years I would seriously be having problems.

Yes, as of today I started giving him a big no when he pulled my hair and I am going to ask DH to do the same.

He did it again today - luckily I was with a really good friend who was understanding about it.