I think Orion may be a chronic biter. He bites Sebastian all the time- today 3 times. I've tried: -Stopping it in process (when I can) -Immediately putting him in the PNP where he can't see me -Giving S something special in front of O that he can't participate in (trip to the potty to wash hands which they love or some other 'treat') -Making him immediately apologize and touch gentle -Biting him back It hasn't worked. Help! Is there something anybody has found to work? He doesn't bite when angry. He just walks up and starts gnawing. He's also biting me.
Is there a verbal difference in the boys? Jessy talked less( had much larger vocabulary weirdly) and she was our biter. Jazz was so much bigger than her that shed just take what she wanted. We taunt them sign language and that helped a bit
Are they starting on their 2 year molars by chance? My boys went through serious biting phases through both rounds of molars. Just little love bites all the time. It freaking hurt! The only thing that really stopped them was getting their teeth unfortunately.
Have you tried offering him an acceptable item for biting and telling him to use that when he feels the urge to bite coming? As in: "We do not bite other people. It hurts. If you need to bite something, please use this doll, this rubber ring etc." As you say he is not really frustrated or angry in the biting situations he may be approachable enough for a substitute item. This might help especially if he is in teething pain/discomfort.
I agree with the suggestions of PP's. I also noticed that my son bit more when he was teething. I also did time outs for biting and even if it did not hurt DD or myself, I over exaggerated the pain so he could see how biting does hurt other people.
Yes! Orion is verbal but Sebastian is VERY verbal... I don't think he needs sign at this point as he has countless words (body parts, colors, #s, ABCs, & all of the general stuff like "hurt"). But this may be a clue into what's going on with him... I'm going to start doing this! Hmm... off to scour the house for acceptable alternatives. I thought maybe he was teething so I did give him Tylenol if he was having a bite-y day but it didn't seem to help.
It sounds like teething pain to me too. However, when any of my kids have bit, I flicked their cheek and told them "NO NO...we DON'T bite" in a very stern voice. None of them have bit more than once except Liam, and he used to bit when he'd get over excited while we were playing. I was able to catch him before he bit, put him on the floor and use the "NO NO we DON'T bite" with him and he stopped pretty quickly. Giving him something that it's okay to bite is a good idea, I hope it helps!
We have been going thru this... maybe I'll dare to say went thru this with my Owen. He would just go thru phases where he just was biting his brother all the time, then it would go away for a bit, then come back again. It probably started about 20 mos and continued until the past month or two (knock on wood I think it is better???) They are 2 and 4 mos. It seemed like the biting got better when he was not teething, and would get worse again with teeth. We did TO immediately for biting, tried to baby/give special treatment to the bitee, and the one thing that maybe helped was to tell him to bite his blankets not people. He would randomly get his blanket and say, "I bite blanket"... It will get better!
I did a soft flick on the mouth and then did the whole no biting routine too. I k now it feels chronic but understand it is a stage. He will not bite his college roommate when he gets upset. Just keep up what you are doing, take a deep breath and cut yourself some slack.
He has been biting since 4 months. It started with biting me while nursing. The flick thing worked then but what really worked was getting DH to stop putting a finger in his mouth. It abated until close to a year and then flared up again. Stopped for awhile again and now has been pretty intense for a good month.
