Biting playfully

My 13 month old has taken to playfully bite at shirts and her sisters shoulders. I have no idea how to end this. When caught she laughs like it's a silly game. She doesn't understand "No". Her poor sister screams, and has a collection of 4 perfect little teeth indents all over her arms. It is getting to where I am going to bite her back, and I really never wanted to go that route.

Any different ideas?

 

I wish I did! But I'm curious to hear what others say! My Jake is a biter (he got me good on the shoulder the other day!) I just kinda say "No! We don't bite!" and then he smiles at me with his big toothy grin.

I'm hoping that in time he will just start to understand what I'm saying ...

Erica

 

They have a hard time understanding (or remembering) "no" at this age in general. But I tried to treat biting the way I would any other undesirable behavior. I would say "biting hurts!" and make it clear from my body language, too. (Make a frowny face and use a calm, firm tone of voice.) Then remove her from the temptation (in this case, her sister). You don't have to remove her to another room, just pull her away for a minute. If she insists on making a game out of it, you can turn your attention away from her for a minute. She'll get the message quicker if the only reaction is that she gets pulled away and then ignored.

 

Ditto Alden!

One of my girls in particular was/is goofy like that. She'd bite, you'd say no and she'd laugh right at you and then come at you with her little shark teeth again, with an evil little laugh.

The best way we found to deal with it was to tell her no and then use the body language that Alden described. And turning your back/getting up from her/putting her down, all extremely effective!

GL! She still bites on occasion, but the worst phase (so far anyway) seems to have subsided.

Oh, and I'm not sure where they're at with they're one year molars, but those really seemed to send my girls over the edge with biting.... and once they were mostly through, they were a little better.

 

We went thru this too around that age. I would try to anticipate when it was going to happen as much as possible, and then change the situation so as to prevent the bite from taking place. Seemed like with DS, he would do it most while cuddling with me - great huh? And then keep saying no emphatically when it happens. It's a stage that will pass.