Biting! Help!

Meredith - posted on 01/15/2010

gosh...you guys are good at being a mom...sometimes i feel like I am doing everything wrong. I did the bite back, didn't work. She does talk well, so she knows what I am saying to her about not biting, and I know it...that's why I am so frustrated. She'll be really excited and she will rub her face/nose on my leg or something, and the next thing you know, she bites.. sometimes she bites things like her sleeves, pillows, or blankets...this week i have just started putting her in time out no matter where we are or what she bites, person or thing, and it's one minute longer every time she goes to time out. It seems to be helping so far. Predicting the bite is what I really started to think about..thanks y'all for your help.

Darlene - posted on 01/13/2010

Jen has some great ideas. One to add is if they bite another child, move your child away from the situation and give the bitten child a TON of attention, while ignoring yours.
Does your child speak? Remind them that they have words,and they should use their words. Again, in the heat of the moment when they want that toy, they aren't going to remember it, but eventually it will sink in!
Whatever consequence you choose to use, use it consistently for a couple of weeks. Make sure if there's a daycare involved that they use the same consequence. It will take a while for it to sink in.
Good Luck!

Jen - posted on 01/12/2010

As a mother who's been on both sides of the biting (my child being bit and my child doing the biting) all I can tell you is that it has to run it's course. I'm not saying to stop disciplining, but I don't think it ever really sinks in. With this age group it's very common for them to bite. They're getting teeth again and they don't want to share and they can't really express themselves completely yet. So with that said this is what you can do: 1. place your child in time out right after they have bitten. When their time is up tell them that biting is not nice and it hurts. 2. Bite the child back. I think this is an old wives tale and many mother's swear by it. I can say that it didn't work for my daughter, but hey it's a suggestion. After you bite them tell them that biting hurts mommy just like it hurts you. We also kissed each other's boo-boos after wards and said sorry. 3. lightly pop/tap your child in the mouth and say no or that's not nice. Again this hasn't been very affective for my daughter, but some things work better for other children. 4. take privileges away. We took my daughter's tv time away and I didn't see an effect, but we were also doing it hours after the fact because she was biting at day care and we couldn't punish her until she got home. 5. Know what situations your child bites in and try to predict the bite. This seems to be pretty effective. My daughter's day care teacher's monitor her and can usually stop her or give her a celery stick before she bites another child. Hope this helps some.