Biting

[daycaremom9]

I have a 21 month old dcg that is easy going most of the time, but has a history of pinching, hitting and head butting when she doesn't get what she wants. My 23 month old daughter gets the brunt of it since they are almost the same age and all the other kids are much older. But this morning for the first time the dcg bit my daughter on the arm, so hard that it almost broke the skin.


so any advice, other than a firm "no biting" and giving the other child lots of cuddles?

This dcg will usually not have any real reaction when I scold her (firm voice, not yelling). When I tell her no hitting, no biting she usually just smiles at me and says "Hi!" in an innocent voice.

I believe I've mentioned this in a previous post. I have a boy who started biting about a year ago. I found that shadowing worked wonders since he was biting when I was busy with something or someone else. Also I started to realize that there was usually something that precipitated this. I think he felt like he was being bossed around by the older girls.

The mom suggested that I give him hot sauce or bite him back. After my shock subsided, I explained to her that I couldn't do that!lol

[mickyc]

I have a boy that goes in spurts. Today he very casually walked over to an older girl and leaned over and bit her arm. Totally no reason for it. Of course mom/grandma blame it on teething because he only seems to do it when he is teething. Sigh....luckily I have a 3 day weekend and he is gone for all of next week as well! Maybe he can get it out of his system before he comes back.

[Polkaroo]

I put the onus to stop the biting on the parent. I had a biter in care last year and in one day a baby went home with a huge bite on his cheek and another child had a bite mark on his arm. I showed the parents of the biter and told them it had to stop immediately. I was right there but it happened so fast I couldn't even stop it. I watched her like a hawk but she still did it whenever somebody touched her toys. Sorry you have to go through this! In my case, there was no reason for it other than the toy issue. If you get to the root of the problem, that's key also.

I'll tell you what the dcMom did that evening. When her daughter tried to bite her, instead of yelling ouch as usual, she grabbed her arm and bit her back just hard enough to make her realize it really hurts. It worked! You and I can't do that, but the parents can. Maybe you think this is horrible, but parenting means DOING something and I'm proud of this dcMom.

Lol my oldest only bit once, I did the same (not hard), he never bit again. None of my other kids ever bit. Thankfully non of my dck have bitten...yet!