Is head banging normal?

Siobhain - posted on 07/19/2010

My daughter bangs her head when she is drifting off to sleep. She slept with us in our bed until she was old enough to crawl off the bed. We would pat her back until she fell asleep. Its how she settles herself to sleep....I did think it was strange at first but she starts her head banging on her pillow as soon as we put her in her cot and within 5 mins she is asleep...no crying or fuss at all.

Sarah - posted on 07/18/2010

OMG - I have one of those - she has been doing it since she could walk and is now 16months. She will keep hitting her head until it hurts. I have started making a joke about it. I slid a pollow under her head once and started laughing and she joined in, one time when she bent over to bang her head I picked her up at the hips and made a big deal about her doing a head stand. She doesnt seem to do it very often now and when she does I laugh at her and say 'wheres your pillow?' and she has started getting a pillow now and doing it on that. Im sure its a stage, I havent seen a teen smashing his/her head on anything because they didnt get their way. good luck

Shannon - posted on 07/17/2010

My son is going to be 17 mos old on the 25th and he is doing the same thing. He has hit his head a couple of times hard enough to bruise but once he figured out that it hurt by headbutting a certain object he would still bang his head but a little more lighter then the first time. The only way we can get him to stop is to either ignore it or distract him with something else when he starts. I'm not sure if your boys do this or not, but another thing my son will do is bang his head against the person who told him no or didn't let him have something. The dr informed me that this is just a normal way they express their frustration at this age.

Jahnavi - posted on 07/17/2010

Hi,

Nothing to worry about this, even the same was with my daughter as the days goes slowly it gets disappear

Kim - posted on 07/16/2010

No I dont think he ever got bruises. He never actually hurt himself, he just wanted the attention.

Donna - posted on 07/14/2010

Kim, did your son ever have bruises from banging? That is what concerns me most is that he always bangs long enough and hard enough..even when I walk away, that he bruises his head.

Kim - posted on 07/14/2010

My son would bang his head when he threw a tantrum. At first I was concerned telling him no and running to stop him. But then he started throwing tantrums every 5 minutes. I even have video of it. Once I noticed that he wasnt actually hurting himself, and relized that he probably wouldnt cause actual pain to himself, i was able to ignore it. Now he rarely throws tantrums anymore.