My son is 13 month old is bitting all the time. He goes to daycare 4 days a week and now I have to have a meeting with the supervisor. He bites from 1-3 kids a day and they range from 3month - 11months. He is also bitting at home and we don't know how to stop it. If he continues at school I am afraid that they are going to make him go on a mini vacation so hopefully his behahior will change. I will take any suggestions you can give me for myself or the daycare.
Dr. Sears is an expert in this field and he has some excellent advice on biting here:
http://askdrsears.com/topics/discipline-behavior/botherso...
If they know he bites how does he get close enough to a 3 month old to bite him? I know it gets crazy at day cares and I know he shouldn't be biting,but somehow I think they should be watching closer. Some of these babies your child is biting are nonmobile so I wonder what is going on at the child care facility. Are the babies up to 2 years old in the same room? I would make a surprise visit to the facility on several different occassions
1. You need to determine why the child is biting. Is the child teething? Is s/he trying to learn about his/her world through oral exploration (putting things in his/her mouth and learning how they taste, feel, etc.)? Is the child biting to gain control or in self-defense? Is s/he stressed, anxious, frustrated, angry, or excited? Is s/he engaging in attention-seeking behavior?
2. Once you know the reason that the child is biting, you need to respond appropriately.
A. If the child is teething, you should provide him/her with suitable things on which s/he can chew.
B. If the child is trying to learn about his/her world through oral exploration, tell the child that biting is not appropriate behavior. Explain to the child that biting hurts and is not nice. Provide the child with alternate means to learn about whatever s/he was biting.
C. If the child is trying to gain control or is acting in self-defense, tell the child that biting is not appropriate behavior. Explain to the child that biting hurts and is not nice. Then, determine why the child feels like s/he lacks control or feels threatened or attacked. Provide the child with alternate means to secure a measure of control over his/her circumstance or to communicate to you that s/he is feeling threatened or attacked.
D. If the child is stressed, anxious, frustrated, angry, or excited, tell the child that biting is not appropriate behavior. Explain to the child that biting hurts and is not nice. Then, discuss the child’s feelings and provide the child with alternate means to express his/her feelings.
E. If the child is engaging in attention-seeking behaviors, tell the child that biting is not appropriate behavior. Explain to the child that biting hurts and is not nice. Provide the child with alternate means to let you know when s/he would like attention from you. Then, provide the child with the attention s/he seeks.
4. Watch the child to see if there is recurrence of the biting behavior. Praise the child when s/he confronts a situation in which s/he would have bitten (based on past conduct) but did not bite. Redirect the child’s behavior if biting recurs.
We gave our daughter a teddy bear blankie and she bites the nose of the teddy bear when she feels she needs to bite. We started this very early though as she is very oral. She has bitten me a couple of times, but I tell her to bite her teddy and she does this now. She has never bitten anyone else, other than me so not sure if it will work. Maybe give him something that he can bite.
Help us out here hun, why does he bite? I mean it is anger, habit, teething? I know I can't answer your question without that information.
My son bit his day care providers out of love (me only 1x. hmmm). We were just really firm and spoke loudly "NO BITING! THAT HURTS!" and put him down. The loud voice made him really focus and he learned that he would be left alone if he bit. He got over it.
I do like the idea of giving him something to bite instead. Kinda like redirecting the dog with their own chew toy -- not your shoe or your hand.
When my DD bit, I pinched her lip. If my finger was in her mouth, then I pushed down under her tongue. NOT enough to cause her real pain, but enough to make her uncomfortable. I also told her, very firmly, "NO biting!" while I was doing it.
She only bit 3x, and never again.
What has his discipline for biting been? It's hard to know what to do without knowing what you've done. None of my kids bit more than once after a warning and a sharp pop on the butt. Actually they got a warning the first time, and a pop the second time after a warning. The next time I saw a mouth opening in the vicinity of someone else's arm or finger or whatever and said, "NO!" they didn't bite. End of story. All between ages of one year and 15 months at the time. They never had to be watched around other kids and never bit again.
