I was BFing my youngest and DS started crying. DD and DS were fighting over a toy and I just thought he was mad because she got the toy. He's definitely big on tantrums. Anyway I just noticed his arm was red and there are teeth marks. This happened over an hour ago so it would be impossible to discipline her now. She wouldn't have a clue what I was on about. I was so happy they hadn't been biting and now this. I SO don't want to have a biter!!! What can I do to stop this in it's tracks??
Luke was a biter, too. I always told him no & redirected until he was old enough for timeouts & then he went to timeout. As soon as he was old enough to understand, I made him look at Lila's arm or whatever with the bite mark on it & explained to him how he had hurt her & she was now sad. But, even with that, mostly I think he just outgrew it. ardon: ETA - oh, and he only ever bit Lila and occasionally me. No one else. So, I didn't have to worry about him with other kids really.
I did the same as Tina...my Luke was the one who bit and I also noticed that he seemed to do it when he was frustrated and/or teething. He only bit me, DH and DD (thankfully). I just say when you catch it to be consistent with your discipline of it.
Mine are so far not biters, thank goodness! But, if one boy sticks his fingers in the other's mouth, you bet a bite did happen. At least not out of anger. But, I still tossed the biter in timeout. I'd much rather him shoo the finger away than bite. That did seem to stop that in it's tracks. I gave no warning. Some things I see as immediate no-no's and biting is one of them.
I find that mine bite when they get really tired and/or frustrated. My girls are almost 16 months old, so it's hard because I'm not sure how much disciplining them will do at this age. They usually play pretty nicely together and will even share at times, but then I hear them starting to get into it and I usually go running and try to grab them before they get the chance to bite. If it wasn't so terrible it would almost seem comical because they look and sound like a couple of puppy dogs rolling around and "biting" each other's faces, arms, legs, whatever they can get. You can almost see their instinctual behavior just coming out as they try to hold on to the coveted toy or whatever. So it is definitely hard to teach them not to do that at this age. I usually speak firmly to the biter(s) and say, "NO BITE! OUCH!" and separate them and hope they they will learn eventually. Right now I'm trying to focus on prevention...but as they get a bit older we will definitely do time outs. My oldest was a biter so I know they do outgrow it, but it definitely takes some work. Good luck! Shannon
