My one year old has developed a bad habit of biting the other kids and teachers at daycare. We work with him at home and when he tries to bite us, we take him and put him in the corner and say, "That hurt, NO biting", but he is at the stage where he thinks everything is funny and he starts to laugh at us. We ignore it, but 15 minutes later, he tries to bit again, and we repeat but taking him away from his toys and tell him NO. I even squeeze his cheeks and say, no, no in a stern voice. How else can we get him to stop...daycare is getting concerned because it happens three to four times a day and today he broke the skin of a little boy. I feel awful but I am out of ideas. HELP PLEASE!
what worked for us was vinegar- I put vinegar on a q-tip and swabbed his gums. It tastes terrible to him and was not harmful to him. It did not take long to break him of the habit.Good luck. What works for one does not work for all.
I realize some may disagree with my advice; but I'd suggest making your son bite into a bar of soap, when you first put him in time out, each time he bites someone. Now, I'm not saying he should bite off a piece of soap that will be ingested. I'm saying he should put his teethmarks in a bar of soap....Ivory or another *simple* soap bar. Keep the bar handy and you'll find he will soon understand that if he uses his mouth for something *dirty* (biting, bad words, talking back), you will wash his mouth out. Use a wet wash cloth to wipe any soap remnants off of his teeth. Go ahead and make him sit in time out for the usual allotted time afterwards. Be sure to explain to him why you are doing this.
A. - how frustrating! My son started to become a biter at about 1, and our pediatrician advised us that the next time he bit one of us, to scream really loud and act really hurt. She said it will startle him and may help him realize it hurts others, which he may not get very well at that age. I thought it was strange advice, but then the next time he bit me, I did just that, I screamed Ouch! at the top of my lungs, grabbed my arm, and was just very exaggerated about it. My son just burst into tears and cried and cried (and I felt awful), but I swear he never bit anyone again - ever.
So maybe you could try that...the only other piece of advice I have is that maybe he is teething and just has that urge going on - you could give him something to hold that he could bite on whenever he wants - a blanket, a stuffed animal - something. I have friends whose kids were biters - and it is just a phase, and will pass eventually, so maybe there's some hope there. I hope others give some good advice, too, so you have lots of options. Good luck!
When I worked at a daycare we isolated biters in a playpen immediately after each incident. It really seemed effective.
This advice is coming from the Mom of two former biters.
First, your daycare needs to take a more active role than just "getting concerned". They should have a plan in place to stop the behavior, and time outs don't work at his age. The most successful I've seen in 'shadowing'. If a child bites more than once in a day they have to spend the rest of the day within arms reach of a teacher. It works for two reasons; the kids hate to miss out on stuff since they have to be with the teacher, and the teachers pay more attention to the biting triggers since the kids are right next to them. And there are triggers, you just have to pay attention to find them since they may not be obvious to people over the age of 2. My daughter was a consistent biter and shadowing ended the behavior.
Second, there are some great books you can get to read with him. Teeth are for biting (I think) is the one we used and it worked well with both kids.
Good luck, and remember it's a normal stage and eventually he'll grow out of it.
Hi! I dissagree that it it ever okay to bite your child back since you are only teaching them that biting is okay-sometimes. (Like when a parent bites a child.) This will only confuse and frighten them. I found a little board book called "Teeth are not for biting" that I started reading to my daughter when she bit a child at my gym day care. It really helped deliver the message in a way she could understand, showing how biting hurts yet also providing an empathetic point of view for toddlers who are teething. I hope this helps. You can find that book at Barnes and Noble. Good Luck!
The only way my friend got her son to stop biting was to bite him back. Obviously don't break the skin, just enough to let him feel a little bit of pain to get the idea. Good luck!!!
T.
I know this may sound crazy, but I had to bit my daughter back. She had that same problem once she found it did not feel good she has not bitten anyone again.
There is a lot of good advise already on this post...I just wanted to add that if you have a very young child biting...sometimes it is because they cannot voice their frustrations. If they have a tantrum...don't try to stop it...it is a good release for them. Also, I would do the "exaggerated" hurt technique and then also focus on the "victim" -taking care of the wound and offering sympathy. Try to get your son to emphathize with the person that he bit (?). Say something along the lines of "look, you hurt mommy (or daddy)". Also, keep something handy that he can chew on, as a lot of children just have a natural tendency to want to chew or bite on something. Don't lose hope, this is usually just a phase and if you are persistent in your efforts to get him to understand that biting hurts, he will eventually stop.
As for the daycare, they should be trained to handle children that bite as it is a pretty common problem among very young children. They will need to keep a very close watch on him to avoid another child getting hurt. When my daughter was 3, another child in her daycare bit her on the cheek. It broke the skin and left a horrible bruise on her face. I was terribly upset but found out that the parents of the "biter" felt terrible. I think the daycare started keeping lemon juice (the kind in the yellow plastic lemon) and when a child would bite they would squirt that in his mouth. I don't know if this is a good idea or not...I'm just mentioning what they tried. She didn't get bit again, thank goodness.
