All Communities > May 2008 Babies > hurting self with head banging...

hurting self with head banging...

Renee - posted on 12/11/2009 ( 2 moms have responded )

1,438

0

My son is now 19mos old and has been banging his head for the past few months. At first I thought it was just tanturms and did the "ignoring" the behavior, time outs, distractions, etc. He will bang his head very hard on our hard wood floors, walls, window ledges, coffee table edge, shopping carts, etc. If there is nothing hard around for him to bang his head on he will hit himself in the head. His forehead is in various stages of bruising and goose eggs. I have been talking to my ped about this for awhile since he started to leave the marks on his head, but finally took him in when his forehead was covered in dark bruises for her to see the extent of his hurting himself. He will even say "ouch" when he does it, and keeps on doing it. The other day he actually bruised his knuckels hitting himself in the head!!! Our ped finally referred us to a developmental and behavioral specialist for children/toddlers. He does it when he is mad, frustrated, happy playing with his toys on the floor, excited, tired, etc.
Anyone else's little one banging/hitting their heads to this extent?? I have been doing a lot of research on the internet and coming up with just the "normal tanturm" type behaviors and them saying to seek medical advise if they are hurting themselves...

Join Circle of Moms

Sign up for Circle of Moms and be a part of this community! Membership is just one click away.

Join Circle of Moms

2 Comments

View replies by

Michelle - posted on 12/14/2009

387

38

Caedyn does bang his head a lot too... Not nearly to the extent that your son does, but he's given himself a couple of goose eggs. I started reading your post with the intent of telling you to just let him do it until he really hurts himself and he'll stop, because that's what we're doing, but that's not the case. Because of the severity of his actions, I would definitely go to a specialist, just to see what could be happening. He may be trying to communicate a serious problem to you.

Amy - posted on 12/14/2009

1,761

18

Could he be teething at all? Our son did that for a while, we think that when he was teething he would do that to help releave the pain. Then he just kept doing it when he got mad as well, but he didn't leave marks when he did. We finally brought him to a chiropractor, they did an adjustment two different times and since then he's been fine.



The chiropractor we had him see said that a lot of time toddlers will do that because the teething pain (or other pain too I guess) and then they hit a bone out of place and it hurts so they keep doing it. It may be worth at least having a chiropractor check your son out and see what they think.

Want to find out the opinions of this community?

Add Poll