Love bites

What can I say, Nate is just a lovey guy! He runs at you and flings himself into your lap, he gives great big hugs pressing his body into yours so hard it's like he wants to unzip your skin and climb in with you. And unfortunately he feels so strongly that sometimes he takes a chomp as if he is eating you up. He doesn't have a malicious or angry bone in his body; he really is just expressing his love when he bites down, so I don't want to punish him too harshly. But it hurts and I don't want him to keep biting!

I've been saying "ouch" and "no bite" when he does it but not getting too mad about it. Is this the right way to handle it? Or will he keep biting because I'm not reacting strongly enough? What do you guys do about non-aggressive biting?

 

I find that with the biting the bigger deal I make out of it, the more they do it. Both of them do love bites, especially when giving kisses, and this is how it started for us. One day they were little love bites, the next day they were the way to get your brother to stop everything he is doing right this very second so that I can have that toy bites.

Keep saying no bites. Our pedi suggested getting right down with them, holding their face in your hands and saying NO BITES or THAT HURTS very firmly. She also suggested that when they are doing it out of love, put them right down and walk away so that they learn this is not a sign of affection.

Biting is the only thing we use time outs for. They were really bad between 13 and 15 months and in just the last couple weeks it has started to taper off on its own.

 

I agree, the less reaction you give, the better off he will be. We also did stern "no biting" and "that hurts" Biting was also a TO offense here and I can tell you after 18 months, it got a lot better. Good luck!

 

This is what we did at that age too. :good: It did get better but it takes time. :hug:

 

We also do the hold their mouth and tell them "NO BITES". If they bit their sister, then we do the hold mouth and no bites and then pick up the sibling they bit and give them lots of attention. This has worked wonders and I'm happy to say that Mallory has not biten in a few weeks. She was my only biter. Not love bites for her sister either. Bites because she wanted something she had.

 

I also try not to make a big deal of it. If I see that one of them is about to bite me, I just pull away a little and distract them with a hug or some big kisses of my own. That has seemed to work. Cameron has only started to bite, but now he'll just put his mouth on me and then look up at me and smile. Today, he gave me the sweetest kiss on my lips. I"m not one to like family lip kisses, but I loved his. Kiefer was a bit more aggressive with his biting so I had to be a bit more firm with his. By aggressive, I mean playful but harder, more painful bites. He's only giving love bites, but they can still hurt...I guess that's why they say love hurts...? He rarely ever bites now. He just hugs and smooshes his face into me.

 

Don't you just love it when they do that? :wub:

 

My DS bites whenever he and DD are play wrestling. She usually starts it & they'll both laugh & giggle & then at some point....he'll chomp down on her. He's not angry when it doesn't, but it's almost like he's doing it as a kiss or love bite, like you said. Unfortunately, it hurts her & she screams bloody murder. So we put him in TO which I don't really think he gets yet. But I just keep trying to be consistent & hope it will pass soon!

 

Aww.. :wub: Mine would do that too - do the sooo cuddly that they 'bite'. Though when they did that I'd do a yelp [more out of being surprised than anything else] and that would make them cry I'd just tell them, 'please don't bite me. That Owiee's mommy.'

Definitely sucks to punish that behavior cause you know it's out of love, but it's best he doesn't continue it thinking it's right. Kids who bite are not ppl I'd want my kids around

ETA: My mom used to bite me when I was little :lol: Guess it's in their blood