I have an 18 month old little boy, who LOVES to spit!!! And it's not just saliva he's spitting...He will take a big drink of whatever is in his sippy, Then get right up in his father or I's face, and spit it out, Then he leans his head back and just cackles with glee, and claps like he's done something wonderful.
We've tried lightly tapping his mouth and firmly telling him 'NO!!! spitting is NASTY'..But it doesn't seem to work, He just giggles more when he tap his mouth.
Any ideas on how we can try and stop this behaviour?
We've also ATTEMPTED ignoring it, But you can only take so much Kool-Aid in the face before you get a little ticked, Lol.
I would try taking his drink away from him and say "no spitting" and not giving it back to him. If you take it away every time he does it, he'll eventually learn that the consequence of this action is the same every time and will give up the behavior because he doesn't want to lose his juice. Then, also, when you do give him juice, tell him "no spitting" when you give it to him.
Tell him he only gets water to drink until he stops spitting.
This should fix the problem in a day or so.
If you start giving him juice, etc. again after he stops, and he starts spitting, immediately go back to water.
He'll get the picture. My middle son (2) is the exact same way. Just be consistent and he'll learn to abide by the rules.
This is pretty much age appropriate behavior for this age. he's testing the boundaries.
my son, who will be 3 in january,,takes drinks and then will let them spill out of his mouth onto his shirt.. and he laughs.. my daughter who will be 2 in two weeks, just did this same things, in a restaurant, to my husband. took a drink of punch and as my husband was right in her face, spit it at him. a older couple sitting by us just laughed,, knowing, i'm sure how kids are.
I'm not one that's big on physical discipline. So what we do is we take the drinks away. we tell them that's not acceptable. your milk/punch/juice is for drinking, you have to swallow it. if you spit it out/let it run out of your mouth again, i'm taking the drink away. i give them one chance. but i repeat it a few times consectively. if they do it again, i take away the drink. i may give it back to them towards the end of dinner/lunch what ever the case may be. my daughter still throws her sippy on the floor, all the time, drives me nuts!!! i remind myself, this too shall pass.
we take it away for that reason as well.. they just laugh after doing these things.
try the taking something away method.. see if that works. it has seems to work better for my son lately than time outs. time outs worked with him at first, now not so much..
it's hard at first to switch the brain and know what to say quickly when they are doing something they shouldn't be doing, but once you have a few things in mind, especially if they are misbehaving but wanting something, that's simple. but there is a price for everything. you just have to find his.
good luck,, i remind myself daily, this will pass, and then older moms tell me to savor it right now.. haha..
I have 4 kids 7 b, 6 g, 5 b, 2g, I have also been thru this a time or 2. My 7 year old spit his stuff all the time,luckily never in my face or on me. but as stated it did pass. We done none of the above. We made him clean his own mess and then gve him a wet rag to wipe the area so it wasn't sticky. He eventually started just getting a rag and spitting into it. took about 3-4 months and he just quit doing it all together. In my opinion it was another tactic to get attention, when attention was not there it stopped, he learned he did not want to clean up with a rag, and we were not paying no never mind which took the fun out of it. My 2 year old daughter is now trying her oats at this and we are repeating the same thing, thus far she has caught on quicker than he did. I wish you luck and remember we can all give advice, but you have to find what works for you. A plus is my kids all love to take rags and wash walls and stuff now.
