Author Topic: My toddler is a biter!  (Read 2934 times)

frugal rph

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My toddler is a biter!
« on: December 06, 2016, 07:55:46 PM »
My 21 months old daughter has bitten me a few times, but she has recently started biting other children. The first few times she bit me, I followed my own mother's advice and bit her back. Since she only bites me once every couple of months or so, I'm not sure if that worked or not. When she started biting other kids, I decided to Google what to do. The Internet generally recommends soothing the biter and trying to talk with them about different ways to handle their frustration. There doesn't seem to be any quick solution to this. I've been hesitant to respond without raising my voice to her because it just doesn't feel right and to be honest I'm worried the other parents will think I'm not taking it seriously. Has anyone successfully dealt with this problem?  Right now I feel like avoiding kids her age until she grows out of this.

DaKini

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Re: My toddler is a biter!
« Reply #1 on: December 07, 2016, 02:23:02 AM »
This can be challenging times for you. Realize that most of your feelings are caused by your socialisation.

Biting at this age is still in the "normal" range. Respond consistently in the way you described, and give your toddler the reaction that you dont like it.
If you have normal children (as most parents do) this will suddenly start to decline and cwade after that. I had two of this type. It can take a long while and you will most probably don't see any progress while it lasts.

I also don't think that isolating until it grows out of this is asolution. How should he/she learn how to deal with the root cause if there is no more opportunity to train?

MayDay

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Re: My toddler is a biter!
« Reply #2 on: December 07, 2016, 06:21:45 AM »
A 21 month old who bites is not planning ahead of time to bite, thus no amount of logic or punishment is going to make a lick of difference.

There are a couple good no biting books you can pick up at the library, but mostly you need to figure out what situations she is biting in (fighting over a toy?) And either prevent those situations from happening, or hover behind her ready to snatch her away when she goes in for the bite.

The best thing to do imo is to find a family to play with that also has had biters. They will realize that it isn't a reflection of your parenting or your child being a vampire. It is no fun to be around uptight first time parents who freak out if their precious gets bit.

DS got bit all the time at daycare. It's really no big deal. Find a mom like me to hang out with :)

MayDay

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Re: My toddler is a biter!
« Reply #3 on: December 07, 2016, 07:23:30 AM »
We also just repeated all the time: teeth are for eating, not for biting. Biting hurts!

It made me feel better anyway!

DS bit me once when nursing. It was so intensely painful that I slapped his face before my brain was even engaged. I felt awful! He never bit my nipple again. Was it because I slapped him, or just a fluke? Who knows. But it's generally better parenting to not bite/hit/etc in order to teach them not to bite/hit! That's part of why spankings make no sense. I had lots of older women tell me to bite back, I think it must have been common parenting wisdom 30+ years ago.

little_brown_dog

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Re: My toddler is a biter!
« Reply #4 on: December 07, 2016, 10:16:09 AM »
My toddler is still too young to be a biter, but I used to nanny a lot of toddlers. From what I can see, anytime a child displays aggressive behavior (hitting, biting, kicking)  boundaries and consequences must be quickly and firmly reinforced every time it happens. For a 2 year old, that would be immediate intervention with a calm but very firm scolding “no, we do not bite!” and an immediate consequence (time out, removal from the situation, etc). You do not have to yell, but you do need to convey it in a tone that means you are serious - a stern face, lock eyes, a firm voice, no smiling. You have to make sure that every disciplinarian is using the same system….if daddy is being firm, but mommy giggles and shrugs it off, it is confusing for the child. If you only intervene half of the time, or you only remove the child/follow up with a consequence half the time, your scolding starts to mean nothing. Be proactive and talk to any nannies or daycare teachers about the problem and authorize them to use your system so you are all on the same page. This helps with consistency, but it will also help if your kid does bite another child because it will be obvious that everyone is taking it seriously.

I do not agree with the “let's reason and talk about your complex emotional feelings” approach when it comes to toddlers acting in a manner that can hurt themselves or others. This intellectualized approach seems to be based on adult reasoning and cognitive abilities, not a child’s. Cognitively, it seems like very young kids are more akin to animals than human adults, so firm boundaries and consequences work well when it comes to stopping negative behaviors. Sometimes simplicity is best when dealing with less cognitively complex creatures. It may make the parent feel better to talk all about anger and feelings (that way they don’t have to deal with the discomfort of actually reprimanding the child), but I suspect the whole concept is lost on the little one. Kind of like those pet owners who soothe and pet and shush their nasty little dogs when they growl and bite…they think they’re being supportive, but it rarely actually stops the problem (and sometimes makes it worse).
« Last Edit: December 07, 2016, 10:22:10 AM by little_brown_dog »

nessness

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Re: My toddler is a biter!
« Reply #5 on: December 07, 2016, 12:46:07 PM »
Totally normal at that age. Biting them back won't work because they haven't developed empathy yet, so they don't make the connection that because they don't like being bitten, other people don't either. Plus biting a small child is just cruel.

There is a book called "teeth are not for biting" that's pretty good. In the moment, I like Janet Lansbury's approach, which is basically just to say, "I can't let you bite me/your friend", and physically separating the kid from the person they bit. If they get upset, just calmly wait for them to calm down and then they can resume playing.

ETA: Also watch her interactions with other kids closely, and if you see she is getting frustrated, remove her from the situation before she has the chance to bite.
« Last Edit: December 07, 2016, 12:49:42 PM by nessness »

BlueHouse

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Re: My toddler is a biter!
« Reply #6 on: December 07, 2016, 01:00:33 PM »
I'll never understand why moms will act as if your child is a monster or like you are an imperfect mother if your child does something that is completely normal, though not desirable.  Next time, I would bite the mothers who make you feel "less than". 

TrMama

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Re: My toddler is a biter!
« Reply #7 on: December 07, 2016, 01:13:10 PM »
I read a great book this summer called, Raising Your Spirited Child. It talks about biting and the author posits that children bite when they want to clear clear space around themselves, but lack the verbal/cognitive skill to say, "Get away from me".

The book said the best way to prevent biting is to give the child the words he needs when he needs more space as well as teaching him to move himself when he's feeling claustrophobic.

My own kids were well beyond the biting stage when I read it, so I never got to try this strategy, but it certainly sounds better than waiting to be bitten and then trying to correct him. That strategy never seemed to work for us and my DD eventually just outgrew the behaviour.

There was lots of other great advice in the book and I wish I'd read it when my kids were little. Frankly, I think a lot of the advice in it could apply to all children and not just "spirited" ones, which is just a meaningless term the author invented.

frugal rph

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Re: My toddler is a biter!
« Reply #8 on: December 07, 2016, 06:33:32 PM »
Thanks for all the replies. I feel better just reading them. She only bites other kids during a struggle over something. If I'm right there, I can stop her. I'll just have to stick closer to her instead of chatting with the other moms.

meerkat

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Re: My toddler is a biter!
« Reply #9 on: December 08, 2016, 09:29:25 AM »
My kid is eighteen months and we've been dealing with biting on and off for a while. Day care has been good about working with us/him, and we bought a book called "Teeth Are Not For Biting" and read it frequently at bedtime (there's a bunch of similar books, we also own "Feet Are Not For Kicking" and "Hands Are Not For Hitting").

Things that have worked for us are:
* Putting him down on the floor and ignoring him for about a minute. Usually I just do the thousand yard stare at a different corner of his room, boring and vaguely disapproving while he cries on the floor. At day care they put him into his crib so he's isolated from the other babies, no idea what they'll do when he moves up to the crib-less one year old room. His current teacher did mention that he gets worried sometimes when they put him in his crib now because he thinks he may be in trouble, but they say it's time for night-night then he relaxes cause he knows it's just nap time.
* Redirecting his biting to kisses. This requires having an eagle eye for the the second it occurs to him to bite and say "No biting! Can you do kisses?" The first part is said in a warning tone, the second part is said in a happy way.
* Being on top of pain medication as needed for teething. The more his teeth are bothering him, the more likely we are to get a bite report.

Good luck! Sometimes you can be doing everything and the biting will still happen. We got called into the "principle's office" (day care owner's office) a few weeks ago (nothing quite like getting called into the principle's office for your kid's behavior when your kid can't even walk or talk yet!) because my son bit another kid so hard he broke the skin! We all talked and basically it was agreed that we're already doing everything we can to curb this behavior. This was just before he really glommed onto the idea of doing kisses instead, it's been better lately but we did just get a bite report yesterday.

Poundwise

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Re: My toddler is a biter!
« Reply #10 on: December 08, 2016, 11:58:02 AM »
I feel for you!  Biting runs in my family... all my kids were biters, though fortunately cured before preschool.  Agree with other posters here, found that my kids would only bite when they were struggling with a stronger or older child.

So what worked was:
- immediate time out for 1.5 minutes for 18 month old, 2 minutes for 2 year old, etc. As I put child in time out, I would repeat firmly, "No biting!" As I took child out of time out I would say, "No biting!  If you want toy, call Mama!" (or whatever preferable solution there was)
- working on alternative ways for child to resolve struggles
- vigilance when child was in situations where a struggle might arise; i.e. if you see another child crowding out your tot, give your child the words to defend their rights, and guide a peaceful resolution to the problem

Luckily for me, most of the time my kids were biting older siblings, but we did have some embarrassing run-ins with friends' children.

LadyStache in Baja

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Re: My toddler is a biter!
« Reply #11 on: December 08, 2016, 04:06:41 PM »
yeah, they aren't planning ahead of time to bite, so consequences don't really help, they just make them feel sad.  At that age, they are so impulsive.  They can't really help themselves yet.


That being said, biting can be an indication that they're stressed/tired/all played out/done being social.  In which case, just say, "You're having a hard time.  Let's go home now".  Or "I won't let you bite, come sit on the bench with me for a while and relax". 

Other than that, it's totally normal and nothing to worry about!  They'll grow out of it I promise!

meerkat

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Re: My toddler is a biter!
« Reply #12 on: December 08, 2016, 05:16:56 PM »
Agree with other posters here, found that my kids would only bite when they were struggling with a stronger or older child.

My kid is an asshole, he would (try to) bite the younger babies whose only offense is that they wanted the toy my son was playing with. My kid is currently one of the oldest/biggest kids in his room and he knows it (thankfully he's starting to be phased up to the next room). There was one time he almost got into it with a little girl about his age/size, she got mad at his attempted bite and she pushed him over. He didn't give her any trouble after that. *eyeroll*