Hello, is it normal for an 11 month old child to be hitting people? At first I thought it was a one-off situation but then she began to do it more often and my husband and sitter mentioned she'd done it to them too. I now notice she typically does it when she's unhappy with something or bored. She also grabs my reading glasses from my face and sometimes pulls my hair. Anyone else deal with this? I'm just hoping for some advice on how to teach her not to do this is an effective way. I did read this can be normal for some kids at this age since they can't express their emotions just yet. I just hope she's not learning bad habits.
It is very normal! My kids and my nephew started throwing tantrums around that time too and we just gave them a firm "No!" and put them down if they did it. Redirection works best for this age.
Remove her from the situation, tell her no and that we dont hit. My son just turned 14 months and we have started 1 minute timeouts when he is doing something he knows he shouldnt be.
Hitting , grabbing glasses and pinching are all age related and not meant in the hurtful/spiteful way , but they do need to learn that it is wrong and they cannot do it , as soon as any of my kids did that I told them no in a firm voice , if they did if again I put them down and had no interaction with them. She will learn and it is a phase , just be consisent with telling her no.
This is normal but you can teach her to be gentle. My 5 month old started scratching, pulling hair and pulling glasses off my hubby's face. We started to gently teach him how to be gentle and not to grab glasses. We're also teaching him not to bite while breastfeeding. When she hits, hold her hands and say "Don't hit." Then pat or rub her arm gently and say "Be nice" or "GENTLE." Be consistent and show her and tell her how to treat people nicely. Good luck!!
TOTALLY NORMAL. Simply stop her (take her hand, or remove her from hitting distance) and tell her we don't hit "mommy", "friends" etc, and redirect her. Time outs aren't appropriate at this age (my opinion). Do it calmly. Too much attention or too much of a reaction will only inadvertantly reward the problem. Also, praise her when she is not hitting, or pulling glasses/hair. Say, "what a gentle girl you are!". When mine went through this phase, I would stop them and tell them to show me gentle touches, and hold their hand to my face, arm etc and softly touch it and repeat see, gentle touches - good job!
Hi K.,
Totally, totally normal, age-appropriate behavior. You should be proud -- she's hitting a developmental milestone right on time. What I recommend is picking one *positive* word. In other words, don't say "no," tell her what she *should* be doing. Most people use "gentle" or "touch nicely" -- something like that. Whatever you choose, though, make sure it's a word you don't mind saying every single minute, for about the next eight months!
At that age, my son was absolutely fixated on pulling our poor cat's tail right out of its socket. Fortunately, fortunately, Saint Cat just sat there and tolerated it. After literally eight months of "pat nicely," my son just gave me this look of recognition, and that was it. He's been wonderfully gentle ever since.
