How did you stop biting?

[BabbyO]

Peanut (22 mo) has taken to biting Stachio if he wants something or doesn't like something that is happening. Now I do recognize that these instances are almost always predicated by Stachio taking something from Peanut or trying to get Peanut to do or not do something. We are working on getting Stachio to not provoke his brother, but really biting is NOT acceptable.

Last night while Stachio was brushing his teeth, Peanut got up on the stool next to Stachio and bit the underside of his arm - it nearly bled, and appeared to be unprovoked. I think Peanut wanted his toothbrush, but Stachio didn't have it, he had his own.

We've been doing swift trips to time out...but I'm not sure that Peanut gets it - or remembers it in the heat of the moment. I know he's young - but this could be dangerous, especially if he does it to another child.

Please share your best tips.

[brittone2]

Peanut (22 mo) has taken to biting Stachio if he wants something or doesn't like something that is happening. Now I do recognize that these instances are almost always predicated by Stachio taking something from Peanut or trying to get Peanut to do or not do something. We are working on getting Stachio to not provoke his brother, but really biting is NOT acceptable.

Last night while Stachio was brushing his teeth, Peanut got up on the stool next to Stachio and bit the underside of his arm - it nearly bled, and appeared to be unprovoked. I think Peanut wanted his toothbrush, but Stachio didn't have it, he had his own.

We've been doing swift trips to time out...but I'm not sure that Peanut gets it - or remembers it in the heat of the moment. I know he's young - but this could be dangerous, especially if he does it to another child.

Please share your best tips.

We went through this with DD and DS1. He would get in her face, etc. and while he never hit her, he had ways of provoking her. At 22 months it is tough because their verbal skills aren't there to express their frustration.

None of this is a quick fix but here's what helped-
Close supervision. If I heard things ramping up, I had to be right there. The more they bite, IME the more ingrained that response gets for a while. So we had to break that pattern and I had to be in the room as much as possible or keep them separated when I couldn't watch. Realistically that didn't happen all of the time, but it did help.

I had to teach the older that he was responsible as well by provoking, getting in her face, etc. and that she didn't have the words to tell him to stop clearly. Her frustration with his actions was coming out as biting.

I had to teach the younger to be assertive with the older. "Stop." "Move!" whatever. As she got closer to 3 it was more like "I don't like that! Give me space!". I taught her to stomp her foot and be really assertive as she said it. It did help, IMO. Of course, she was also more verbal in general which likely helped. We had to practice using the words and getting them out when frustrated. I know that's going to be hard with a 22 month old but I'd give him a word or two to use that means business, and teach the older that when he hears that, he had better back off, kwim?

Reflect feelings "you are disappointed about..." "You were mad when your brother...." Again, not going to be helpful for a while but eventually he'll replace his biting with words. So you start giving that skill, knowing it will unfortunately be a while until it really starts taking root.

Have the biter help care for the child bitten. I would point out to DD that DS1 had tears because he was hurt. That when she bit him, it was a big owie. I'd have her offer ice or a bandaid. Again at 22 months they just don't have empathy but you can plant the seed in terms of looking at the reaction fo the other child, seeing the hurt on their face, etc. and in time that empathy will get there.

It sucks. At 22 months I really would try to supervise as closely as possible and separate when you can't. Not fun though :( FWIW, my DD never bit and very rarely hit other kids; she saved 99% of it for her brother. And work with the older as much as possible because that was the major trigger in our house. The older was very good about walking the line where he wasn't overtly doing something "bad" to his sibling, but he was kind of triggering her behavior by getting in her space and so forth. If she snatched a toy from him or something, he had to learn how to ask for it back, offer a trade, that type of thing. We role played. And then if he made an attempt and it wasn't working, he could ask me for help.

[BabbyO]

Brittone - thanks for the advice. Stachio is definitely getting in Peanut's space. Ironically the incident last night (second one of the day) I was right there, I just didn't see that Peanut was frustrated - he didn't appear to be.

I definitely showed Peanut that he hurt his brother and made him cry (Peanut actually gets very worried when he hears other kids crying). He definitely targets just his brother most of the time (I've gotten it a few times, but usually it is when I'm trying to separate them). I'll keep working with Stachio, too....It blows my mind how they can go from best buds to mortal enemies in the span of 3 nanoseconds!

[mommylamb]

I don't have any good advice, but wanted to say that I feel your pain. DS2 (17 months) bites. He bites his cousin who goes to daycare with him, and he bites dS1 (6) a lot. I try to supervise and separate, but DS2 is quick. He often doesn't bite hard, but you'll see the spit spot on DS1's shirt, even if there are no bite marks. It's often like he just rests his teeth on DS1. I am at my whit's end.

[BabbyO]

I don't have any good advice, but wanted to say that I feel your pain. DS2 (17 months) bites. He bites his cousin who goes to daycare with him, and he bites dS1 (6) a lot. I try to supervise and separate, but DS2 is quick. He often doesn't bite hard, but you'll see the spit spot on DS1's shirt, even if there are no bite marks. It's often like he just rests his teeth on DS1. I am at my whit's end.

It is frustrating. Unfortunately Peanut is biting HARD. Stachio has 2 sets of bruises where Peanut bit him yesterday, and you can clearly see the blood blisters where his teeth were on one of the bites.

[a2mom]

When DD1 was about 2, she went through a biting phase. We tried all sorts of things to stop her: time out, explaining, snapping her finger (kind of a hard tap with our fingers), etc. The thing that finally worked for us was reading the book "Teeth Are Not For Biting". We bought a copy and read it several times. After that, when she tried to bite, we repeated "Teeth are not for biting. Biting hurts - ouch!" and the biting stopped. We still have a very rare biting incident for one of the kids now and then (3 years later) but it's not been a consistent problem since then.

[TxCat]

Time outs were the only thing that worked for us. I think we started around 18-20 months - I was worried it was too early but my ped assured me it wasn't. I think the books say it can take 10-15 tries until the kid "gets it". It probably took us about 8-10, but DD finally stopped biting. Good luck.