Advice on Raising a Biter/ Discipline for a 15 Mth Old

We had this problem at EXACTLY the same age. I was pregnant with #2 and was afraid my 1st born would chew him apart. I remember crying in the Dr's office...I was a little emotional. What finally worked was CONSISTANT redirecting. He was in daycare at the time too so those were the kids he liked to bite, not aggressively or unprovoked, but more like if he wanted a toy and someone else was tugging on it he would bite and love the reaction he caused. So, what we did was tell him "no biting, that hurts people" sternly and talking to him on his level and we removed him from the situation, i.e took the toy away from him, sat him somewhere else, etc. Time outs are not effective at this age due to developmental abilities/learning, etc. He just needs immediate consequences. He will throw a fit, but it is the 1st of many situations where you need to intervene. Rest assured, the biting will not last long as long as you continue to intervene each and every time. I can't remember exactly how long it took to change the behavior but I know that he was NOT biting when his brother was born 2 months later. For us, it meant really coming up with a plan for at home and at daycare that was the same so he knew what to expect. He is the only one of my kids (of 4) that has been a biter. Let me know if you have any other questions. I know this is a tough battle!

kids this age do not understand time outs...tell him no and either re-direct him to some other activity or give him something to chew on. biting is a form of communication too as he can probably not express himself through words. talk about appropriate ways to be mad or get things he wants. he will outgrow the biting.

catch him while he is good too and reward for playing nice, listening etc...kids love to please their parents at this age.

Have you tried giving him something that he can bite and can keep with him? The kind of biting you're describing is usually just a phase and, since its driven by the physical need of teething, I wouldn't try to discipline him so much as redirect him. If you can find something that is satisfying for him to bite, you could just redirect him to use that when he moves to bite something/someone else. Then you could say, "we don't bite people. If you need to bite, bite your teething item". Or just give him the teething item as soon as you see him looking like he might bite. If he does bite another person, I think its appropriate to tell him no sternly and explain that biting hurts and model an apology, but I wouldn't expect it to work too well to discourage the behavior overall. He's just too young to get cause and effect.

Good luck - hopefully the other moms will have some good suggestions too. Biting is the worst.

B.
Momma to a crazy toddler

At this age you just need to stay really close to him if he is in a situation where he might bite and remove him immediately. A 15 mo does not make any connection between a time-out and his behavior. My son was a biter and the thing that worked the best was to give him an alternative, "Biting people hurts, give a hug or a kiss instead." or "Biting people people hurts them, here is a teether for you to bite." If you go the teether route I would teach him a sign to give when he wants a teether (I don't know if there is an official sign for teether but you could just make one up). Then just prepare for a lot of repetition and consistency.

In regards to the saying "No" it is normal for this age. They are testing their limits. There is no reason to respond with a time-out. Instead try redirecting, making the request in a different way, or best of all start offering 2 choices for what you are asking of him and let him choose.

Of course you're a meanie. All of us parents are. You're not his friend...your his mom (who happens to enjoy playing with him). Pick a punishment and stick with it. ALL kids have to have some punishment and it sounds like a good time to start with this negative behavior of biting. Being cuddly isn't bad, but the biting is. Don't discourage good behavior, punish the bad. Just because he's getting his molars doesn't give him the right to bite people. You're doing the right thing...just stick with it.

When my daughter talks back, we cal it "Sass". We DO NOT tolerate sass so we put her on the naughtystep(Timeout). 2 years later, at 4, we are on a marble reward system and we take a marble. We don't warn her anymore,...we just take it. She knows the rules by now and she knows that sassing is not tolerated, so she is punished right away when she does it. When she was younger, we gave her warnings first. But with biting, you can't give a warning everytime. I'd have a small chat with him about biting, etc...and then when he does it, I'd punish him from then on. (He understands more than you think.)

Good luck. :)

Does your son have a pacifier? Because when my kids were younger they all did and that incouraged them to become very oral. Even to this day they will still chew and suck on things.

I agree that it's too young to really discipline. It's all about Redirect, Redirect, Redirect. My son did the same thing at that age, and we gave him a bright kind of chew toy that we called his Bitey. When he was looking like he was thinking about biting I'd quickly jump in an ask, "Where's your Bitey?" and we'd go find it, or "Bite the Bitey." Something like that. Totally worked for us.

Good luck!

First you have to the be the parent, then you can be their friend. We all have to be meanies or our kids will walk all over us and not respect us.-that was hard for me to learn nobody wants to be the bad guy

Standing in the corner is great, if 1min. isn't working you could even do 2 or 3min. I konw they say 1min. per age of child but sometimes an extra min. really helps.

If he bites be very firm, raise your voice somewhat and say "No we donot bite, that hurts so and so," I know some people have actually had to bite their kids to get them to realize that it does hurt others.

When he has the urge to bite get him a teething toy or ring or something he can chew away on and get that urge out.

My son used to bite other people a lot harder than he would bite himself. This may sound cruel but, after an especially painful bite, I made him bite HIMSELF hard one day so that he could see that it HURTS! He cried and I felt terrible, but that was the last time he tried biting someone else.