My 13 month old son has started slapping me and my husband at random times - not when he's angry or upset. After he does it and we tell him no, he laughs. Is this normal behavior? How do we stop it? So far we've been telling him no and explaining "gentle" to him by example. He doesn't seem to get it. Any suggestions?
It's very normal. What we did was redirect the hitting by turning into "high fives!". If there was an instance where they would actually make contact, then we would and continue to firmly say NO HITTING.
Whenever our son winds up to try to slap us, we put up our hand to let him give us a 'high five'. In our situation, he's just looking for attention and by making the sad/cry face, saying 'gentle', or holding onto his hands only made him want to slap the face some more.
My son started doing that to my MIL too, then he started with me and my husband. We just told him no then took his hand and said nice mommy, or nice grandma and rubbed it gently on our face. Now, he just puts his hand on our faces and we repeat the saying(nice mommy, grandma, etc). He is doing quite well with it(he is 17 months old now, and he started doing it around the same age as yours!)
Good Luck!
Yeah, my daughter started doing that too. She especially like smacking me while nursing and thought it was hilarious. I just kept grabbing her hand and very seriously saying "no." and eventually she got the idea. She still needs a reminder once in a while. It sometimes takes a while before they get the idea but keep it up and eventually he'll get it.
My daughter does exactly the same. She thinks it is very funny. I grab her hands and show her gentle. I think you just have to keep doing this until much later they understand. It isn't meant to hurt. They are just exploring. My little one sometimes pulls my hair and then her own - definitely trying to assess what that exactly is. It is amazing to look at their little brains thinking about things and experimenting.
