My 11 month old son is hitting... he thinks it is very funny. What do I do?

CHRiSTiNA - posted on 03/03/2010

this must be an 11 month old thing. cuz my 11 month old little boy is hitting me too. if i lay on the ground with him he hits me in the head with things (which i cant tell if is intentional or not, but it happens a lot!). he slaps me in the face with his hand, or whatever toy hes holding, & pulls my hair really. but i think if u just show them that it doesnt faze u they will stop. really all they are looking for is a reaction. & taking them away from the problem. if he does it when im holding him i set him down & walk away & dont pick him back up even when he begs me to. i show him how to be gentle & tell him when he is being nice & not nice. when they can understand better they will then no whats acceptable & whats not acceptable. they are just trying to find out who is boss. but right now they dont really understand when ure trying to show them u are the boss. so just tell them whats right & wrong & they will catch on eventually.

Ashley - posted on 03/02/2010

My son was biting me HARD. I had so many people tell me to bite him, smack him, pinch his ear, etc that I was horrified. I would never hurt my son. Then a friend of mine said when he hurts me, act like he hurts you bad, get all theatrical and loud. I did it, and it scared my son, and voila! No more biting!

April - posted on 03/02/2010

Timeouts don't work for a child this young. Babies this age don't understand that hitting hurts or that it's not nice because they are just now learning our language and what rules are so putting them in timeout is just going to confuse them.

April - posted on 03/02/2010

Whatever you do...Don't hit him back even if it's a smack on the hand. You can't teach a baby not to hit if you yourself hit your baby :) Instead, when he hits or bites. Tell him NO! in a firm voice and take his hands and stroke them gently and say in a nicer tone "don't hit, be nice to mommy" or something along those lines...When he throws things take them away so he can't throw them.

Belinda - posted on 03/01/2010

i find if i just said nothing and looked at her in her eyes with a stright face and put her in her time out pota cot she stoped with in a day good luck

Joy - posted on 03/01/2010

My daughter just starting biting as well, and I notice she has been hitting people too. I tap her lightly on the hand, but she continues to do so..but she doesnt hit me back as hard. Im not sure how to discipline her..she does respond to no but she's got this rebellious streak where she wants to see how far she can go with it. Hopefully the kids grow out of this phase. My daughter is a very good baby..I don't want that to change.

Valerie - posted on 02/28/2010

omg! thank you for posting this!!! I have been going crazy about this for the last week or so. My son has been hitting also, and it's driving me nuts, AND he hits HARD! I wasn't sure if I should reprimand him or not, since I wasn't sure if it was due to his inability to control his movements, or if he really meant it. When he gave me a bloody lip today, I lost it. He had my inhaler in my hand and whacked me in the face with it, hence the bloody lip. I grabbed the inhaler (which he shouldn't have had anyway) and told him NO! and grabbed his hand because he hit me again. He thinks it's hysterical when I tell him NO! in a firm voice. I read (do we believe everything we read? lol) that at this age, they are not able to comprehend punishment, time outs, spanking, etc... so what's a mom to do?

Sarah-Anne - posted on 02/27/2010

My daughter has been hitting and biting a lot now too. We got her to stop pulling hair at 5-6 months by lightly tugging on her hair when ever she ripped at ours. She still laughs when we tell her "no" for anything, but is starting to get it. We normally call her Bella, but when she's naughty it's Izabella and she is starting to tell the difference and usually stops whatever she is doing when we use her whole name, especially when we throw in Grace. She's very much into the tantrums that last 5 seconds up to an hour. i usually just walk away, but when that doesn't work i put her in her crib and shut the door.

Becca - posted on 02/27/2010

I know the feeling!! my daughter just started these anitcs too! What i've found to be helpful is to make her look at me while i'm telling her no, and shake my head "no" using a stern (not too mean) voice...she's starting to understand but most of the time she just thinks its funny...but just stick to it...GOOD LUCK!!

Celeste - posted on 02/26/2010

My daughter is the same way right now. The smacking is to get attention at first, but then she keeps doing it sometimes, she also laughs at me when I say no.

Recently I started saying no much more forcefully and grabing her hand at the same time (not hard, just to stop the smack) and she understands that, she starts crying (kinda the fake cry) and stops after about 30 seconds. She still goes to hit but never right after she gets in trouble. SO im thinking its working =)

Good luck with your little man

Leanna - posted on 02/26/2010

Hi my son is 11 months and he hits people round the face and if we dont give him attention all the time he has a tantrum, so what we do is we tell him no and if he carrys on we put him in his play pen with nothin in it and walk out the room so he learns that his behaviour is not acceptable he usually crys but we live him and after a while he settles down and then we take him out, it is hard but it doesnt hurt them.

Jessica - posted on 02/25/2010

My son also finds this the most amusing part of being held by an adult... He will WHAP your face if you're not paying attention... But I have my husband to blame partially- he thought it was funny to have him "fight" with him and make Caleb play hit him when he was about 5-6 months old... Well he now does it on his own and much harder.
What we have begun to do is tell him "That's not nice" (I say that because I dont' want his first word he says over and over to be NO) And he makes a funny/sad face and will some times stop and some times not.. if he doesn't stop, I tell him he'll be put down if he hits again.. if he does, I put him down. He might cry, but he's realizing "oh, if i hit her, she's not going to hold me!" and hopefully soon he'll realize it's not cool to hit!

Dayna - posted on 02/24/2010

Mine too!! How funny. Well not really funny. I noticed today, that if I reacted to her she did it more. If I just ignored her, she stopped. She thinks it's so cute. I'm really concerned about it though. I am praying it will just disappear and go away!