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Advice needed-DS won't stop biting!
DH and I are somewhat at a loss. DS is almost 16 months old. His biting at daycare has progressively gotten worse, he bites or attempts to bite every day. Yesterday was by far the worst day, we were told he bit both his teachers and a classmate and attempted many more times.
We have asked our pedi for guidiance and between home and daycare have the same discipline in place. When he bites we look him in the eye and sternly say "biting hurts, we do not bite our friends" and we tell him he needs to go in timeout. We put him in an area where there are no distractions for a one minute timeout....and he will sit there. He knows what he did is wrong as soon as he does it and he knows he will be punished (the timeout). After timeout is over I tell him that we don't bite our friends and we need to play gentle with them, he understands the word gentle which is why we use it. I know his teachers are frustrated and I cannot afford to stay home with him if he gets kicked out for biting. However, I'm not sure at his age he fully understands what he is doing. DH and I are at a loss. We aren't sure if we need to try another type of punishment, we tried in the past biting back...I wasn't comfortable doing that and didn't think it was sending the right message.
It seems as though he bites or attempts to bite out of frustration. Either another kid takes his food or attempts to take his toy and that upsets him, so he bites them. He is an only child, so we do work on sharing at home. I also think its partly a communication issue. Last night I tried to get him out of his room to shut the door and he was getting mad and started biting on the toy in his hand and so I just stopped and let him go and he went over to pick up a toy on the ground in his room and walked out of the room on his own. I felt like he can't tell me Hey mom, let me get my toy first and then I will leave the room, but I was trying to force him out first.
If anyone has any advice or guidance or another method to handle the biting I would appreciate it, otherwise thanks for hearing me out.
Re: Advice needed-DS won't stop biting!
First - I am so sorry you are dealing with this. Avery was very aggressive at daycare at that age and there were many days I drove home in tears because I was greeted with negative reports of her day. She wasn't so much a biter (thought she had her moments) as a hitter, hair puller and pusher. We worked on redirecting daily. We read Hands are Not for Hitting and Teeth are Not for Biting daily. Sometimes I'd change it up and say Hair is Not for Pulling. For various reasons, we ended up moving her to another daycare and things got MUCH better, but she was also older when we moved her. I'd say our roughest period was from about 15 months to 20 months. BRUTAL.
Joseph was just the opposite. He was gentle until he became a chew toy at school. Then he started retaliating. It was rough for a while, but it has gotten much, much better. Granted, he is older than your DS, so it could be that.
If I can find our copy of Teeth are Not for Biting, do you want me to send it to you?
This is my fear with DS. He was bitten quite often for a while and now it is down to once a week. I am so afraid he is going to start biting - this weekend he got mad at me and tried to bite himself to see how I would react. I feel bad for the parents of the kids who are biting. I can't imagine trying to explain to Cooper that you're not supposed to do it and have him understand - especially when you're not always around and don't know exaclty what they do at school.
Talk to the teachers. Maybe try to watch his actions just before he bites and see if the teachers can watch for that and intervene before he bites.
I don't have any real advice, Coop hasn't bitten or been bit. It doesn't seem to happen much at his school and I don't really know why except that their child-teacher ratios are really low (his room is 8 toddlers and 2 teachers) so maybe they are better able to prevent it before it happens?
But I wanted to suggest you go ask on the Toddler 12-24 Months board, there have been a lot of biting discussions there in the past and I know there were some moms who had lots of experience and advice. Good luck to you.
Thanks Harmony...I have definitely been frustrated and shed a few tears as well. It's hard, I have THAT kid, yet we are all consistent with our punishment. I think a large part of it is that he doesn't have the communication that a two year old would. He is the youngest in his class by 3 months or more, which might even be frustrating for him. Thank you for the book suggestion too...DS loves his books.
I have been lucky to have dodged the biting issue for the most part. #2 will bite #1 when he is at a total loss about what to do and they are not getting along, but that is far and few between. It is about frustration for him for sure!
What I can say is this has been the topic of discussion on my neighborhood mom forum more than once and I have had other friends deal with it. I think you are probably right on about the frustration and inability to communicate. You may want to try to work with him on language and communication, as well as behavior. When he seems like he is about to bite, get down on his level and ask him what it is that he wants. he won't be able to answer but you can give him suggestions. When he acknowledges the one he wants, break it down in to an easy to use word and help him learn that word. Does that make sense?
For all the biting stories I've ever heard, they eventually all went away with better communication skills and age. I hope you have the same experience and that it ends soon!