kicking, pinching, pulling, biting - gentle ways of saying STOP IT!!!

[dragonflyblu]

my dd is 10 months old, she has just started biting me. She is also esting boundries with hitting and kicking.


How do i nip this in the bud and start teachibg her these things are not okay?

i am posting this here because i want AP approachers.:thumbsup:

[MumOf4Monsters]

My son is 11 months old and does the exact same things. The biting is the worst. My son loves to give cuddles but i'm always worried that he's going to bite me.:hair: I just shake my head and say "don't bite mummy". I know that he probably doesnt understand me but it's good to tell him anyway. He is just starting to understand "no". When i say no he stops what he's doing and shakes his head and looks at me, so i know he does understand that.

When my son hits it's usually because he is really excited. I take his arm and make him stroke my arm gently and tell hime to be gentle with mummy. It does work. He then trys to be gentle.
As for the pinching, i have no clue how to stop that. When i'm holding him on my hip he pinches the skin under my arm, you know the flabby sensitive bit:o. It really does hurt. I just take his hand away and say "don't hurt mummy". He usually goes straight back to doing it though:banghead: .
My son is also obsessed with my hair. I have long hair and whenever he can he grabs hold of it and wont let go. Even if it's tied back, he'll reach back and grab it. Very frustrating!

Anyway good luck with it all. Just remamber that she is'nt maliciously doing these things, she's just learning. She'll grow out of it! :fingerscrossed: soon!

:D

[the_queen]

I tend to say things like "lets try to be loving to each other" and "we love each other" and show him how to be really loving and gentle. Doesn't work much :laughing: but eventually it'll sink in (I bloody hope!!!!!)

Mine is now nearly 18 months old and I"ve started doing the "please be loving" and "please be gentle" and then if he does it again I say "you know what? Mummy doesn't want to play with someone who hurts her" and I walk away. When he hurts someone else, like his sister or his little cousin, I say to him "look at her face! You made her cry, hurting is not OK we do not hurt the people we love" etc and then focus all my attention on the person who got hurt. Very child-care of me :rolleyes: but it seems to work, most of the time.

[dragonflyblu]

good tips. I think i need to find some consistent phrases to say without using 'no', 'be gentle' is a good one. hope it sinks in soon! She is really rough even with other kids at playgroup. I have such a bully baby. Doesnt help that she can walk and then she walks all over the other babies and hits them as she passes!!!:eek:

[MordecaiAliVanAllenO'Shea]

The "be gentle with mummy" works well for us to - I say it calmly and quietly and take his hand and show him, so say if he has been rough with me I say that and use his hand to stroke my arm gently. When his teenage cousins where with us for the holidays he was hitting them a lot but mostly they would laugh or shriek and he started to think it was a game. Nothing was working to stop him so I would just take him away from where they were and say "if you are going to hit them you cant play with them, we dont like it when you hit." It would upset him but he started to get the idea that if he hit he would be removed.

I also tend to say things like "we dont hit in our family" and "we dont scream in our family" (when he would scream his frustration at us).

Not foolproof and I know we have plenty of ups and downs ahead of us, but I'm pretty sure you'll find the same is true of less gentle forms of discipline

[Noah_and_Elijah]

I've started doing the "please be loving" and "please be gentle" and then if he does it again I say "you know what? Mummy doesn't want to play with someone who hurts her" and I walk away. When he hurts someone else, like his sister or his little cousin, I say to him "look at her face! You made her cry, hurting is not OK we do not hurt the people we love" etc and then focus all my attention on the person who got hurt. Very child-care of me :rolleyes: but it seems to work, most of the time.

I could have written that word for word!! That is how I approach things with my 10.5 month old! It doesn't work right now but I am hoping with patience and perserverance it will pay off. :fingerscrossed:

[stellarella]

I usually try and distract him with something else rather than try to explain to a 10 month old how and why it is wrong. I usually gently say "Ouch, that hurts mummy, lets cuddle instead" and give him heaps of hugs and kisses.

DS has just started throwing mega tanties and I try to comfort him and make him feel safe while his emotions are running crazy. He looks so upset when he throws a tanty that I just show him how much I love him, hold him close and try to soothe him.

DS did a bit of kicking, biting and hitting at around 10 months I think, but not much. I could sense that he wasnt doing it intentionally, he was just exploring with these new movements so I let it go. He doesnt do it anymore.

[OJandMe]

I wouldn't have a clue. I battle this daily with my twins. One will hit, by the time I get there to separate them, the other one has hit back...

It's never ending.

When they hurt me I say "No, that's not ok. it hurts me and I won't play with someone who hurts me."

I also say.. "No, we don't ...(insert behaviour here). We use gentle hands. Show me your gentle hands."

It works with me,.... but not with each other.

With each other these days I tend to just say "Separate!" as soon as I see a fight breaking out. And if they don't, I"ll count to 5 then make them both sit down for 5 minutes on opposite sides of the room.

We're still working on it... :rolleyes:

[MordecaiAliVanAllenO'Shea]

DS did a bit of kicking, biting and hitting at around 10 months I think, but not much. I could sense that he wasnt doing it intentionally, he was just exploring with these new movements so I let it go. He doesnt do it anymore.


:yes: yep I agree with this - sometimes it helps to try and understand why they are behaving that way - when DS was that young we figured he didnt understand it was something wrong or want to hurt us, he was just exploring what he could do.

More recently though I've noticed he is much worse when he has been lacking attention from me. I've been really sick with a cold this week and so laying down a lot and not interacting with him nearly as much and he was obviously crying out for some attention, so DH took him outside for a while to play with our dog and he was fine then.

[shed]

I remember this phase, and yes, it was around the 10 month mark, little teeth would sink in, oww!! And he would smack me.

I can't remember doing anything particularly clever, I used to get taken by surprise and yelp, lol.

Then he just stopped doing it one day. Funny little things aren't they.

He is 14 months now and hasn't started the tanty phase yet, he does protest at things but he just kneels on the floor and puts his head down for a second. I just ignore him. He only lasts a few seconds anyway and then he's up and off to seek and destroy.

[dragonflyblu]

Well been trying the gentle words and the "dont bite mumma, mumma is not going to give you booby while you bite." and pulled my Tshirt down after a very hard and long bite... oh my nipples are sore! Well it resulted in a big tantrum and Clea pulling up my tshirt and climbing all over me to get to booby. So I gave her booby and yep she bit me again, so I gently took booby away... by shoving my finger in between booby and clamped down teeth.. ouch! yep and she cried so I put her on the ground and she stopped crying and started playing. Helps to understand that for her it was a bit of a game. So now i am going to take booby away and put her down so she doesnt try to get at it. Oh I do hope this phase passes soon.

[KapowSchazam]

Yep, just keep doing what you're doing!

She'll figure it out in no time!

And yes, this stage, while ouchies and annoying, doesn't last very long at all.

DD used to pull my hair all the time and giggle with it too, I just tied it all right up, and didn't let her hand get high enough to grab it, and after a while, she forgot all about that 'game' :rolleyes:

[dragonflyblu]

Ah Lil B and mumma i must be following you around! We had a bad night with Clea teething but today I woke up early and actually feel full of energy despite the lack of sleep. ready to tackle another day of "no darling that hurts mumma" and telling myself this is a short stage just a painful one:thumbsup:

[KapowSchazam]

Ah Lil B and mumma i must be following you around!

:devil6: OOOOHHHH you cyber-stalker you!!!! :p

[KatiesMum]

The 'be gentle with mummy' line has worked for me.

I have a small mole on my chest just above the neckline of most tops, whcih my DD used to grab/scratch etc. I used to say 'Oww' (Habit unfortunately) and cover it with my hand - something she now does (gently...)

Having said that - we are just starting with the tantrums .... screaming, throwin herself on the floor etc. What to do?