22 month old who bites?

[mtemm]

My son just turned 22 months and occasionally he bites me or dh. I honestly don't think he intends to hurt us he just gets caught up with excitement or whatever. He kisses full open mouthed, doesn't pucker yet, and sometimes it happens if he's kissing us. I just don't know what to do. We've tried firmly telling him no bite and he starts crying and looking so sad, like he has no idea why we are being firm with him.

any advice? he's behind verbally, at least with expressive speech, so sometimes its hard to know what he understands and what he doesn't understand. Not to say that he isn't smart, he is, and he does knows what many things are, I'm just not so certain he understands what biting is.

 

[Pop Daddy]

spank him

 

[sap1227]

We went through this with DS and are still fighting it. He never bit us out of anger or because he was upset, only when we were playing. Whenever DH or I are under a blanket, he will bite the blanket (and us). Nothing seemed to work to stop him, we tried to calmly say no and put him down, we would put him in another room (like the living room, he was not locked in anywhere, just out of the room we were in) and I am embarrased to say I even hit his leg one time. I was having horrible morning sickness and I was so tired, he was biting me and I could not get him unattached. My frustation got the best of me and I hit his leg. For the next couple of days, he would come over bite me and then hit his own leg . That did not work either. The good news is he very rarely bites us anymore.

So the moral of my story, I have no real advise, just hang in there, it does get better. Now that DS talks he is much happier and easier to deal with (DS is 24 months).

Christy

 

[DD2Disney]

I am not sure what the answer is. Especially since like you say he may not understand what he is being punished for. Just thought I would send you some pixie dust!

My DS2 would only bite when we were playing also. But he would also say "bite" so i KNEW he knew what he was doing. He got punished for it. And told not to...he eventually stopped whole process probably lasted 2 months or so.

Hang in there.

 

[Jockaroo]

A friend's son was having awful biting issues around 2-years old. The parents said to bite him back. Well, I couldn't do that. Instead, one day while I was watching him for his mom, he bit me on the shoulder. I told him "NO," and he got mad. Decided to bite me again. I managed to put his arm in his mouth and he bit himself. He bit hard enough to draw blood. I felt awful, but his mom said he never bit anyone again. He understood the pain. (We both have scars from this!)

 

[FreshTressa]

I always said a firm, but calm "no, that hurts mommy", and set my son down on the ground and walked away.

I know it is sad to watch them get upset, but eventually they will make the connection. Even if he doesn't mean to, he needs to learn to stop before he does it to other kids or something.

 

[Jenn Lynn]

We did the same as Fresh Tressa. DD never went through a bad biting stage, but she would on occasion to get your attention.

At that age repetition is the key. Just do the same thing over and over and eventually he will connect the two. I don't think he needs to be punished, just let him know it hurts you and then remove him from the situation or distract him.

JMHO!

 

[Kimberle]

This is a very age appropriate "problem".

Unfortuantly, there is no "answer". Children are generally in their 3's before they understand.

My dd was a "biter", too. Even at pre-school.

This is what helped:
Encourage your child to use words. When they bite, they are expressing themselves in a matter that they know how. At 2, they are often just learing many different words. When your child bites, take him/her on your lap, sit in a quiet, undistracted place. Ask them "why did you bite xxx?", tell them that it's not nice and hurts. Ask them "do you want to hurt xxx?" "Would you like xxx to hurt you?" Try and help your child verbalize his/her feelings at the time of the biting. Just like adults, they have to be "taught" how to "think quickly on their feet".

Also, when the teachers have a "biter", they shadow the child for a time to see what "triggers" the biting. This helps them defuse any incidents before it happens.

One more idea. When your child bites, help them to comfort the bitee. Help your child to get an ice pack, hold it over the bite, give a kiss, a hug to the bitee, even a bandaid. This helps the child to learn the "consequences" of what they did. (Even if the bite didn't really hurt, you should still try this method.)

HTH's!!

Good luck!!! And don't worry, this stage, too shall pass.

 

[Cruise04]

It probably goes toward corporal punishment but I finally got tired of being told when my daughter bit that one time she bit me and I bit her back. Not enough to draw blood but enough for her to get the feeling and she never bit again. But the idea of putting their own hand/arm in their mouth and letting them bite is not a bad idea.

 

[Lewski709]

Kimberle is right on. It is so age appropriate. As long as you don't see a correlation between agression, I wouldn't punish. My 4.5 yr old did this too (when he was younger), but very randomly and not aggressively. It went away on it's own.

The last time my son bit was over a kid trying to take a ball from him. He was 4yrs old....too old to be biting. Well.....he knew better. Let me tell you what I did. I was SOOOOO angry. He even said he knew better, but it was his only defense mechanism (he felt). I did not let him play that night in his t-ball game and after that I took him to the store and let him pick out any treat he wanted. He chose a brownie with M&M's on it. I walked back to the car and DH was furious with me. When we got in the car, DS was so excited about having his brownie and had a big smirk on his face. I looked at DS and DH and said, now you are going to take this brownie to Jordan tomorrow and tell him how sorry you are for biting him. He hasn't done it again.

 

[mtemm]

thanks everyone! I'm hoping that like many of you said this too shall pass. We'll keep with the firm no bite and show him how to comfort the bitee, so far only dh and I thankfully. I wish we could talk about it more, but like I said, he's behind verbally...maybe says 4 words total, and even of those I've only heard one for the past month.

 

[Talking Hands]

Interesting that this is a problem with kids of hearing parents. It seems to be very rare with kids of deaf parents. Maybe this is because there is good communication through the use of sign language. Biting is mostly due to the inability of the child to communicate his needs and frustrations clearly and young children can do this if they use sign since the ability to sign can be developed well before the ability to speak.

 

[Melora]

I don't have a lot of advice because I never had a "real" biter. I only have 2 stories.

My oldest DD bite younger DD once. They were 3 and 2. Older one was screaming about something and younger stuck her finger in the screamers mouth. CRUNCH!

My littlest DS (now 3, then 1) was playing with my friends little girl (also 1). The little girl kept taking everythign out of his hand. Everytime he picked something up, she went over and took it from him. He was getting frustrated. Finally he took a toy and went to the corner to play and she came over and took it away from him. She was trying to get it out of his reach but she stuck her arm across his face in the process and he bit her arm. It happened very quickly and I couldnt over to them in enough time to stop it. Of course I had to tell my girlfriend about it because her DD had a nice raised teeth imprint on her arm. In trying to explain what happened it was hard not to come across with it sounding like I was syaing "She deserved it". My friend was understanding.

 

[HappyMommy2]

My first child was never a biter but my second is. I think it peaked at about 22 months; he's almost 2 now, though, and thankfully it has decreased dramatically. On one of the worst days, at my wits' end, I tried spanking his leg and, like sap1227's son, he would then just spank his own leg after biting! Now we just say "no bite!" or "That HURTS mommy" or whatever very firmly and remove him from the scene. I don't know if that's what has worked or if he's just growing out of it.

Just wanted to say I can sympathize!

 

[mtemm]

Originally posted by Talking Hands
Interesting that this is a problem with kids of hearing parents. It seems to be very rare with kids of deaf parents. Maybe this is because there is good communication through the use of sign language. Biting is mostly due to the inability of the child to communicate his needs and frustrations clearly and young children can do this if they use sign since the ability to sign can be developed well before the ability to speak.

I actually do baby signing with my son, something we should have started earlier but too late to say that now. It seems to be clicking finally with him, he signs please, bye bye (very late on that one, we were so proud when he started to last month!), the sign for dog, and he knows several others like eat, drink, and more that he doesn't sign back yet. When I first heard of baby signing my son was 12 months and I was gung ho for about a month. DH thought it was nonsense (he's changed his tune) and DS wasn't really responding either understanding or trying to communicate, so I let it slide. Started it again off and on but no real response until last month when like I said it seems to be clicking. Plan to keep going with it as well as verbal with the signs. Hopefully his ability to communicate with us will just keep improving.

I'm pg with twins now and definitely plan to baby sign with them starting at an early age, and be consistent with it. Hoping communication with them will be better than it has been with my son.

that all said, he really doesn't bite out of frustration, its more when he gets excited playing or when he's giving kisses. Another reason why I don't think he realizes what he is doing.

 

[piratesmate]

I used to tell DD "That hurts!" and pretend to cry. She only ever bit a few times.