Help! My 20 mth old won't quit biting! I don't know what else to try.?

Question

He mostly just bites his 6 yr old brother and me. No one else seems to have a problem with him biting any more. I have tried everything I can think of and what advice I have found in the books. Super Nanny, if you are out there, HELP! It really hurts and he is leaving terrible bruises on us. I don't want to have to spank him though we have swatted him on the back of the hand and his butt, but it doesnt seem to do any good. Do they go through aggressive stages too? He doesn't seem to be angry. He just bites. Is he too little for time out?

Answer 1

Mom all though its frustrating it is completely age appropriate. He does not have the language skills to express his feelings. is he teething? if not let him no its NOT NICE to bite your brother. let him know it hurts. show him the mark he made. give him hugs and say we use nice touches. DO NOT bite him Back! that will only make him think its ok! Have duplicates in the house to cut down on fights.

Answer 2

yeah, biting is a nasty little habbit to break. I can tell you what I've seen my mom do and that is to bite the child back. Abuse! many will cry, but those few kids she did do it too, two of my siblings and a friend of hers child, never bit again.

As for my own idea I would perhaps try a type of play pen. Remove him from the situation. Tell him "biting is bad" in a stern serious manner and place him in the pen. Set a timer.. 2min.? Say nothing and pay him no mind for the whole time-out. After the timer goes off take him out and tell him to tell the person he bit "sorry" or give a hug if the words aren't there. After some repitition the biting should cease.

I really hope this helps you. I'd say above all that anything you choose to do should be implemented with utmost attention to consistancy. If the advice you get here doesn't work, have you talked to a doctor about it?

Answer 3

Please don't bite back. That is just teaching him that biting is okay if you do it. He is so little and likes the reaction he gets. He doesn't understand that he can hurt others at this point. You just have to firmly say no biting and then remove him from the situation. Most experts agree that biting back is the wrong way to teach not to bite. The less attention you give to him about biting, the more it will go away. He is testing his world not being intentionally mean. He is to little for time-out so just redirect and distract him until he reaches about 2 years old. And most importantly, spanking just isn't right. It is completely ineffective long term and can make your little one aggressive. The more you hit, the more he will hit. It is just a learning behavior. Check out this babycenter advice from experts.

Answer 4

I would not do the "eye for an eye" method where if he bites you, you bite him back because he's only 1 and approx. 6 month I'm guessing and that's too early to do consquences, but biting probably mean he wants attention if he's not angry, or in other cases, you definitely should not slap the child on the back of his hand, but I would put him back to his crib/corner area, and make sure he does not go out of the border of that area or try to leave the crib/corner area because he must learn from his mistakes rather than hitting him. You are correct not to spank him because spanking him will make him hate you more. There are many ways of preventing a child from biting and one of them is to make him learn his mistakes. An infant will listen to you if you command him decently, but not roughly and not to nicely, but a happy medium. If you have him learn from his mistakes, he'll overtime stop biting because if you make a mistake, you would most likely learn from the mistakes and not do it again.

Answer 5

The next time he bites you, take him and bite him wherever he bit you. I'm not saying to draw blood, but enough to leave both a (small) physical impression, and a mental lesson. When he cries, do not comfort him! If you or someone else does, it'll make you look like the bad guy and will fade like a bad memory.

You can keep spanking him, but kids learn more by the 'monkey see, monkey do' rule. Trust me, I've had two younger cousins that had the same problem until I did this. They cried for a bit, but they never bit again.

Answer 6

First off you can try biting him back but before you do try finding out why he is biting, is he angry, upset or feeling left out. The reason i ask is because my oldest child bite and when nothing worked I took him to a doctor and she suggested that he had no other alternatives for getting his point across.

Answer 7

I tried everything! Biting my daughter back, talks, spankings, time outs, EVERYTHING! The only thing that worked for me was a dumb book called "Teeth Are Not For Biting". I found it on Amazon.com
Good luck!

Answer 8

Good Luck. My daughter did same thing to her bro and me. Tried these-let him bite her back, make her bite herself, time out, i bit her (not hard) she bit herself harder, swatted the butt. None of those worked, yes I tried talking every time too. One day she bit the back of my thigh and my knee-jerk reaction was to turn around and gave her the slightest of slaps in the face. Didn't hurt her but, the fact that I touched her face freaked her out and she never bit again. Try everything. Maybe he'll grow out of it.

Answer 9

So,enable him run round bare, fill him up on junk nutrition and sugary beverages (makes him pee and fizz more desirable) and enable him sit down backwards on the large potty. what's it gonna harm? Be reliable and do not go back, get him pull united statesfor bedtime. Have him take his diapers and throw them in the trash and tell him that he's a huge boy now!!!

Answer 10

You must bite him back. Just not too hard . Just enough to show him that what he is doing hurts. Good Luck.