18 Month Old Bitiing, Please Help!

I know its counterintuitive and probably not on your list of things to consider, but I couldn't get a handle on my daughter's biting and hitting until I started spanking her.

I babysat a little one who was a biter. She would bite the other little boy. Nothing worked. One day I was standing there and right in front of me she went to bite! Well, I yelled, grabbed her and plopped her on the couch. She was shocked. The element of surprise took care of the biting issue. She was not allowed off the couch for a while! Never did bite again.

I feel your pain on this one. My son was a chronic biter from the age 11 months onwards. We got kicked out of 4 daycares for this issue. At one center we were gone after 2 days - and this was after my warning then and emphasizing the he was a biter. He would bite for no reason. He'd be happily playing blocks with another child and then CHOMP. Several times a day. It seemed that no matter how much we warned the centers, they couldn't monitor him well enough. Eventually we figured out that he needed to be in a center with a very low teacher student ratio. Cost at that point didn't matter because it was at the point I was going to lose my job if I didn't have a place to send him. If I lost my job I would have lost my car and house, and everything else too.

Anyway, we found a montessori school when he was about 2 years old that had 4:1 teacher ratios. And unlike all the previous centers where his 'teachers' were nothing more than overpaid teenage babysitters, his teacher at the center actually had an early childhood teaching degree. Armed with our warnings about him, he managed to go nearly 2 years without one single biting incident at that school. He still tried to bite everything and anything at home, but that was ok. Cost wise, I think the center only ran us an extra $100-$200 monthly than the centers he had been in before that. Like I said before, cost wasn't an issue anymore considering what was at stake.

Looking back now, I realize he has an oral fixation. He still chews on foreign objects to this very day. I caught him chewing on a nerf bullet the other day, and he's nearly 11! I still don't know what to do to fix it, and he never gets sick, so I figure it's just his little quirk.

Toddlers bite because they're frustrated, usually. I'm sure that he doesn't yet have the verbal skills to be able to adequately express himself. His motor skills are such that he can walk, grab, etc, but his abilities just haven't caught up with what he thinks he would like to do. He can't tell anyone he's frustrated, so he bites. It's understandable, but still not acceptable. At daycare, they need to take note of his mounting frustration and REMOVE HIM from the area BEFORE he bites. Yes, a time out. No, he's not being punished, but rather, he's being given a chance to cool off and calm down before he rejoins active play again.

If he does bite, likewise, he needs to be removed from the action, with a firm, "No. Biting hurts." Once removed from the area, he will probably melt down. That's fine. Let him cry and get it out of his system. Once he is calm, he can play again.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Once he gets better verbal skills, he will stop biting. Meanwhile, you just have to try and manage his frustration before it reaches the boiling point.

How about swatting his little hand and sternly telling him, "NO!"?? I would even remove him from the current activity and place him in a play pen or crib. He's definately not going to like it, but he will get the hang of it after a few times. I promise. I think making a reaction he would think it's a game or funny-not the idea you want to go for.
All toddlers bite. I vividly remember being bitten when I was in pre-k and my mom had a huge cow. The day care wanted me to bite the other kid back but my mom refused. The concern is that there are so many germs in the human mouth that if the skin is broken-a trip to the doctor would be warranted. That certainly would be no fun for the bitee.
Good luck.

I know this might sound weird, but have you defined to him what biting is when he does it? We assume that our toddlers know what they are doing, but they don't always understand our words. When he does it try saying, "that's biting and we do not bite, it hurts other people and their feelings" it might take a few times but once he understands what it is, and if he continues then I would add a little pain for the consequence. Like a slap on the back of the hand or a small pop to the mouth. We usually only learn when pain is involved. I know is will probably get negative comments for this, but this is what worked for me. Mine stopped pretty soon after the "pain" started

When my little girl was in a "biting phase" I spoke to her about not biting people but gave her a couple teething toys she could bite. When she felt the need to bite on something (due to teething) she was to bite on the teething toy only. I also agree she needed to be involved in an activity to prevent boredom and encouraged to "use her words" and not bite from frustration. I do think 18 mos is old enough for time out, I started at 12 mos with my kiddos and they got the concept.

He will have no concept of time out for several years. What they do get the from time out is they are being set aside, not important, which might increase the behaviors.

The teachers at child care should have some suggestions for this. They are supposed to be professionals that have resource books they made while getting their training. They should have some information about chew time activities. Your little guy needs to chew and chew and chew and chew of stuff. One thing this does is make the jaw tired where they don't want to bite anyone anymore.

The hard thing is that the other kids at child care will all go through this stage too and it will start up again and again.

You can google chew time for toddlers and get a lot of ideas of how to implement this at home too. This way you might find something that works really well for him and can pass it on to the teachers.

You do understand though that chew time can be a hazardous time if the child is not completely totally supervised the whole time, face to face. No going to the bathroom or turning around to wash your hands, at no time can you stop watching him chew.

The foods he eats should be no larger than 1/4". His throat is about the size of a McDonald's straw, anything can block it if swallowed the wrong way.

He needs to be removed from the scene when he's frustrated, or distracted. He does not need to be punished. All that does is make him angry and he'll act out more and more and more then it will carry over when he outgrows this stage and he'll just be an angry mean child.

So find other ways to manage this. Sit down with the director and the teachers. See if you can all together brain storm some ideas that will work for this situation> even if a teacher is shadowing your child he will still find an opportunity to bite someone. That's just going to happen. It always does.

He will outgrow this and it shouldn't be too many more months. He needs you to continue to love him and give him positive praise each time he does something good or the right way. Kids want attention and if they get a lot of it for good behavior they don't tend to do too many of the bad behaviors if they don't get that attention pay off.

At 18 months, have you tried time out? I think that was about the age we started it for DD, for just a minute.

I would also think about things like how is he sleeping, is he teething, does he have any verbal skills? Have you tried baby signs so he can communicate more and maybe be less frustrated? What does the daycare do? In our case, we had a problem at home, too...specifically DD would bite ME on the leg. Sometimes it was when she was riled up and sometimes it was for no reason I could discern and sometimes it was being ornery. The last time she did it I must've jumped a mile and yelled so loud she started to cry. I felt bad that she cried, but that "OW!!!" seemed to do the trick.

If he does anything like putting a mouth on you, even if doesn't bite, I'd say, "No, teeth are not for biting people." If you are around when he bites someone, tell him no biting and move him away so he sees that biting = not getting what he wants.

It should pass soon. Good luck.

You may not like my answer, but when my 18 month old velociraptor (aka biter) was in child care they took a comprehensive approach of observing what behaviors triggered the biting and then worked to intervene prior to the biting trigger.
For example, they found that he was biting when he was bored and wanted to do something. SO, when the teacher noticed that he was getting fidgety or walking around aimlessly she'd go get him and get him involved in play dough or puppets or coloring or story time, etc.
YES it is a lot of work,but I was fortunate enough to have incredible child care professionals who knew about child development. I would encourage your teachers to do a similar exercise where the director comes in and simply observes what occurs and why the biting is happening, etc.

OH! at home he never bit any of us, but we did read the book "Teeth are not for biting" and "hands are not for hitting" this helped reinforce the messages about appropriate behavior. Remember you LO is only 18 months old and is working really hard to make sense of all the rules of this world:)

S., an 18 month old will understand why he's being plopped in a playpen after biting. I'm sure you are yelping "Ouch!" and upset - getting bitten HURTS! Tell him NO BITING! and put him in time out. Let him cry and walk away and go wash your arm. Be 100% consistent.

As you see him getting a bit frustrated, say to him "Use your words". (Even if he doesn't have any.) Ask him questions. Talk to him. Part of this is that he doesn't have language skills yet and doesn't know what else to do with his frustration.

You MUST show him that you will not put up with being bitten. Be VERY firm with him. Do NOT hug him or comfort him. You should be comforting yourself instead. If he bites another child, drop him in the play pen and fawn all over the child in his presence and ignore him. That is what our daycare did.

You are right to try hard to work on this because you're daycare will only take so much of this.

Good luck!
Dawn

My DS was doing this at daycare every once in a while starting at this age. We started doing time outs this early. Only giving him half a minute on the step. Although they are young, they start to understand that this behavior is not appropriate.

I also found that the more verbal my DS got the less he was biting. I think he was biting out of frustration as he wasn't able to let kids/adults know what he wanted/needed. You may find that the more words he gains, the less he does this.

Good luck. This is just the worst when it is your own child that is biting others. Ugh.

I used time out at this age. Not for a long period of time - literally 1 minute at age 1, but if a child is playing, bites, and gets removed from the situation where his toy is, even for a minute, every time he bites, he is going to learn from it.

I know some will say that time-out doesn't work at that age, they won't understand. But when I was nursing and my 10 month old bit me, I would say "No Biting" firmly and remove him from me. Count to 30, then put him back on to finish eating (on the other side, because ouch!). It only took twice for him to associate that action (biting) with a consequence (interruption in eating) and stop biting me. So I definitely think very young children can put it together if the action is immediate and consistent. I know this is a different kind of biting than what you are talking about, but my point is that even 10 month olds can understand a very simplified version of time-out.