Hitting Self?

My son did this same thing from somewhere around 16 months to 20 months (give or take). We didn't know quite what to think either, and did the same thing you are doing to try and deter it to no avail. He is finally growing out of it at 23 months and does it very seldom anymore. I would not be alarmed as long as everything else seems normal :)

The ONLY reason for this behavior is to get a response. If you let it go, it won't work for her. I'm with Grandma T.
C.

Yes she'll outgrow it but you can help the process by not giving the behavior too big a reaction. My daughter at the same age became a head banger. If she'd accidentally hurt herself on a toy, she'd then hit her head against it in frustration. I began to place her in a pile of pillows to calm down, worked well. This often occurs when children lack the language to express their frustration. Modeling the words she lacks will help her bridge the gap eventually.

I would try and teach her what to do with anger. She starts hitting her head, gently grab her hands, and say we don't hit, but we can take big breaths to help with being mad. Then show her. Take some deep breaths, I found that if I do it and while I'm inhaling I raise my head and when I'm exhaling I lower my head while shaking it (kinda silly) she will copy me. After quite a few times, she gets the hang of it. Since she is 14 months old, you will have to show her this maybe 50 times but she will get it and do that instead of hitting. It seems like children don't listen as soon as they hear no, so try to find alternatives to saying no or following up a negative with a positive like the statement I had above :)

The book I brake for meltdowns is a good book too.
It is normal, however, you should always teach them a different way to express their anger. I know a few kids who have hurt themselves throwing tantrums.

This is surprisingly common. My grandson did the same thing at about that age. We realized it is not usually necessary to tell him "no," by doing a combination of things:

1. We did a better job of anticipating what he would want (babies being fairly predictable), and had some desirable and distracting alternative to offer him. Also, keeping things out of sight that you KNOW that baby can't have is helpful. So, for instance, if he wanted to get his hands on the TV remote, we'd put it away but have a dead cell phone sitting out where he could play with it at will. (Littles LOVE grown-up looking devices). If he tended to want unwise snacks, we'd keep them behind cabinet doors but put out saucers of nourishing finger foods that he could eat.

2. We noticed that these frustrations occurred most frequently later in the day, when he was tired, hungry, over-stimulated, or over-managed. All of those problems can be handled creatively and often avoided before they become issues.

3. If parents act very concerned or upset, the child is MORE likely to continue the behavior. She's getting a reaction, and that's better than just being stuck with her own frustration. She is very unlikely to hit herself hard enough to do real damage, so fail to "notice" and she will eventually stop.

4. Give her words. As they become more verbal, most kids will start using them instead of acting out. "I feel mad / sad / frustrated." And listen to her and sympathize when she tells you words instead of resorting to other behaviors. She's mad at you, but it's not safe for her to act out against the person she needs the most in this world, so she hits herself instead. Words will allow her to tell you she's mad, and even that she's mad at you. Validate her feelings, because feelings are valid and a natural part of being human. That's different than validating or allowing destructive behavior.

Ignore it, it's a phase.

First, I agree with many of the posters that this could be the start of the terrible twos--early--and that if it's the start of tantrums, there's not much you can do but let it run its course. However. It is also important to watch it and make sure that it is just an age appropriate/mileage thing and not something else.

My daughter did this when she was about that age. We eventually discovered when she was 5 years old that she has Sensory Processing Disorder. We knew she was different when she was younger, but had no doctors helping us deal with her and her specialness (they just always told us she'd grow out of it. Yeah, right. They didn't have to live with the godawful temper tantrums like we did, that would last All. Day. Long.).

I finally figured out what she had. Finally took her to a Childhood Specialist, who said, off the record (because SPD is not an official diagnosis), that indeed my daughter has SPD--and we went from there to get her help. When she got old enough to talk, she'd call herself "dumb, dumb, dumb" when she'd hit herself. She even would sometimes hit her head against the wall--I got that one stopped right away.

Find a few books in the library on SPD; they can give you some suggestions. The biggest one--and the one that worked for us--was to completely change our household over to organic--food, water, household, personal, and cleaning/outside products. I also had my daughter checked by a naturopathic doctor for heavy metal toxicity (check), food allergies/intolerances (check), deficiencies in vitamins, minerals, amino acids, enzymes (check). Once we addressed all those issues, it was like night and day, and we had a completely different daughter. She still has issues--but now we can manage them, where before, they managed her/us.

I'm not saying that's what your daughter has; I am saying that's how we definitely knew there was something going on with our daughter. She's now 11, and doing better than we'd ever hoped.

If you are very concerned about it, or it seems as if she is hurt as a result of the slapping, perhaps consult your pediatrician.
But my son would (and still does at times) bang his head if he was frustrated. On the crib, he'd kneel over and bang his head on the floor, etc. I remember reading somewhere (maybe Babycenter.com) that it is fairly typical for them to do this when frustrated because it helps them get their frustrations out. And they'd probably never bang hard enough to really hurt themselves.
I think it's fairly normal, but not having seen your baby do it, and realizing that my own experience doesn't make me an expert, I'd still say check with your ped if worried.

Hello,

My son started doing that when he was 14 months old approximately. He is now almost 2 years old and I rarely see him do that anymore.

It is a start of terrible twos, he is my second child and my first child (daughter) never did that.

Beware, this will last for a while and could get worse. My son also started head banging shortly after that.

Apparently (I found out) this is normal for kids of that age. About 20 % of boys are head bangers and boys get that more frequently than girls. People who have never seen that get surprised at that behavior, but if you ask your doctor he will tell you not to worry and to ignore it.

Behaviors: slapping own face or head or you with hands or with fists, dropping on the floor and hitting the floor with head repeatedly, banging any other nearby object like a wall or a chair or your knee. If I move away, he stops crying, stands up and comes to me and then drops on the floor in front of me or starts banging against my leg. Sometimes when my son would not sleep at night, he would get up and repeatedly bang his head against the crib rail, in a monotonous way - I found out later that's a way of calming himself down.

Cause: saying no, raising voice, denying what he wants, taking something away from him.

This is to get attention and also because of the inability to express what he wants and inability to deal with his emotions at that age.
This is normal, it is the beginning of terrible twos, and you should ignore it, nothing else.

Also, what helps my child is to acknowledge his feeling, like I would let him be upset, but after a while (like a minute) I would offer a hug and pat his back and tell him I know it's hard but it will be ok. Eventually he has learned to come over to me himself for a hug. I continue to ignore him if he continues to want to bang objects or roll on the floor.

Generally, try to avoid situations that cause that, like do not say no, try positive statements instead of negative, for instance say "come play with me" instead of "don't touch that". Try redirection. Don't use timeouts at this age. Don't raise your voice, don't punish.

My son does not do self-slapping or head banding anymore. I sometimes see him get upset and he lays on the ground, but no head banging and no slapping himself anymore.

My son was also evaluated for the Sensory Processing Disorder and they did not find anything. I would not have evaluated him on my own initiative, but my day care provider wanted to.

SPD is not one symptom, it is a collection of symptoms if you google it and read about it. Also there could be other diagnosis and not SPD, but they never include self-slapping as the single symptom. Other symptoms should be present, usually many other symptoms.

So if you just google the self-slapping or head-banging and read about it, you will be reassured, I am sure. By its own it is not something to freak out about.

I would suggest though that your day care provider should be experienced enough to have seen that before so that she knows how to handle it. Otherwise that behavior might be aggravated by improper handling of the situations. You might want to find a more experience provider who had handled many toddlers in the past. Or switch to a day care center - they are great with things like that (I have seen that myself).

I have switched my day care provider and it works out much better for my son right now, I am very happy.

P.S. Please never hold her down physically. And also, she cannot really hurt herself by doing this. It might seem that she hurts herself but even the doctors will tell you that serious self-inflicted injury by slapping herself of banging is highly unlikely. Just make sure she has safe surroundings (like no sharp objects nearby).

I agree not to stress too much from this.. it is self limiting. BUT another suggestion that worked (works) VERY well for us is Baby Sign Language. There's tons of books, DVD, etc to show you how.. all are pretty much the same.

My kids both were so frustrated by not being able to voice the new feelings inside of them. They would be upset & not be able to express themselves verbally. We started teaching signs before a year old. Mainly the "needs of a baby" ones, and fun ones for objects in their lives.

It made a huge difference. And even now at ages 6 & 5 yrs old they both sometimes will sign when they can't get to the word they want :)

It is for attention from frustration usually. If you can give voice to the source of the frustration BEFORE the tantrum starts... then her behavior isn't needed any longer :)

Good luck, hang in there!!

Totally normal for some kids. Don't worry! My youngest (& other kids I know as well) used to do this. It seems it happens when their little brains are going faster than their vocabulary and/or bodies can keep up. They're frustrated or angry (or sometimes just tired) and they don't yet have a way of expressing that to others. It comes out in slapping, head banging, biting or other behaviors (actually -- you're kind of lucky. Frequently the target is other children. At least you're not getting calls from the daycare saying your child is causing problems for other kids!).

Help her develop words to use or other ways of expressing herself, to the extent that you can. And don't worry. It really is a phase and will pass.

My daughter does the same thing for some of the same reasons and I ask her not to do it. I haven't been able to stop it but it has slowed down.

It's a tantrum. She's the perfect age to learn to nip that if you discipline it. It will be way faster than trying to teach a 2 year old and up. Tantrums can lead to throwing themselves back onto their heads, puking, hitting themselves, hitting others, all kinds of things. If you teach her not to freak out when you say something she doesn't like (a valuable lesson in itself) you wont' have anything to worry about. My older two needed discipline at 18 months for their first fits (that didn't get them anywhere so they quit) and my 3rd was tougher and younger. She was angrily lashing out in protest at 9 months. I disciplined her calmly but firmly from age1 year to 15 months for raging fits, and that was way longer than most kids under two take. She's now a sparkly happy 2 year old with excellent self control. She still has her temper, and she doesn't talk which frustrates her, but she points and cries appropriately to communicate instead of tantrumming. The common advice these days is to ignore it, but it can literally last years if you do that. I don't get it. All my friends who ignored tantrums had wicked tantrums happening frequently through age 5 or so. Some got off easy and the kids quit tantrumming around 3, but many just got good at it by then. Again, I totally don't get that advice other than that people don't like disciplining kids. Any negative issue in life that is ignored gets worse. Tantrums are no different. You can wait until 2 if you want, but you'll need more discipline then. Or you can ignore it and live with it.

LOL! My son does this too. He also throw himself straight backwards and hits the floor, or smashes his head facedown into the floor. I just laugh and tell him he looks silly and walk away. He'll learn... my other 2 kids did this and never caused any damage to themselves. My pediatrician said a child will never hurt themselves to the point of damage... and it's been true so far! Just ignore the negative behavior; she'll catch on that not only does it hurt, but she's still not getting what she wants; get bored with it, and move onto the next big thing :)

My little boy did this from about 15-18 months too, it is very common, come even bang their heads on the floor or wall, too - mine did the floor banging when the got really mad/frustrated. I think they mainly do it because they can't effectively communicate what they need or want, and they know the head hitting gets them immediate attention.

Don't give in, it IS a tantrum and a stage - they will grow out of it, if not encouraged, by excessive attention and giving in to whatever you said no to.

I would clamly pick him up and either hold him, in a manner where he couldn't hit/hurt himself, or take him up and put him in his crib for a few minutes of "calm down time".

We did also use baby signlanguage with both of our kids, so they could communicate better, earlier, and it helped tremendously.

My oldest son started doing that when he was about 15-18 months. DO NOT GIVE IN TO WHAT THEY WANT. That will only encourage them to continue doing this when they don't get their way. I am happy to say that my boy just turned 5 and RARELY ever does that now. Maybe only twice a month. I just turn around and walk away. It will get better. :0)