I first wrote about my daughter’s biting problem a couple months ago. Three months ago, in fact. And, clearly my approach is NOT working because she continues to bite more than ever. She has expanded from biting only her brother to biting friends and her big brother’s friends. And she’s tried many a time to bite me!
It’s crunch time, folks. She starts Mom’s Day Out on Monday and, although, I haven’t asked for the discipline details, I’m sure the program does not look kindly on children biting one another.
My daughter is 19 months old. She’s incredibly independent, sociable and can be the most loving child you’ve ever seen. But, she has a temper like you read about and gets very mad when she doesn’t get her way. And that’s when she bites.
Oh, and just because it’s funny, I should mention she only has 8 teeth – 4 in front on top, 2 in front on bottom and 2 molars on one side. Ran-dom!
Advice to Stop Biting Behavior
I’ve looked around on the web and even wiped the dust off some of my actual books to try to read about what I can do to make her stop biting.
About.com has a collection of articles about Stopping Toddler Biting Behaviors, and I found this advice from the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford to be particularly helpful. It explains that toddlers usually bite for one of four reasons: experimenting, frustration, feeling powerless or stressed. I think my daughter probably falls into the frustrated and / or powerless category. Here’s advice from that article on appropriate way to stop biting:
While every child is different, the following are some recommendations that may be used to help with the child who bites:
- Be firm. Tell your child that you will not accept biting and why. Tell him/her biting hurts others.
- Offer another behavior the child may use instead of biting. If the child bites because he/she is angry, have the child come to you and tell you this instead. A child who is younger than 18 months may need a toy that is allowed to be chewed on.
- If you catch your child biting, use a firm “no” to stop the behavior, or try to stop the child before the biting actually occurs.
- Use time-out if your child bites, or take away a favorite toy or activity.
- Do not bite your child for biting someone else. This teaches your child that biting is still acceptable. Do not bite your child in a playful manner, as this might teach him/her to bite others.
- Give praise when your child does not bite.
The other information I found helpful was from What to Expect the Toddler Years
“Probably because biting seems so primal, so animal-like, parents are often more horrified when their toddlers bite than when they hit. Yet the biter is no more vicious than the hitter. In fact, a majority of toddlers engage in some biting sometime between their first and third birthdays. For more, it never becomes chronic; a few experimental chomps seem to satisfy the urge. But for some, the behavior persists, and continues to cause problems.”
(That would be my kid!)
Suggested precautions to prevent biting from What to Expect the Toddler Years:
- Provide a nibble to prevent biting. Sometimes a child bites just because she’s hungry.
- Never bite back. As with hitting back, biting back is confusing to the toddler.
- Nip biting in the bud. Don’t overreact, yell or embark on a lengthy lecture; simply take your toddler aside and explain calmly but firmly, “Please don’t bite. Biting hurts. Your hurt Anna when you bit her.”
- Avoid a double standard. Avoid confusion by making all biting (like playful nibbles) off limits at all times.
- Take biting seriously.
Plan of Action
When my daughter bites, I remove her from the situation tell her “No bite. Biting hurts. You hurt {insert victim’s name here}. No bite.” If we’re at home, I put her in her crib for a “time out.” Clearly it hasn’t worked.
I think I can improve by helping put words to the frustration and anger she’s feeling and to validate that. It sounds kind of hooky, but if she can’t say it, she bites, so I need to say it for her. I also need to watch her like a hawk and warn her Mom’s Day Out teachers about the issue so they know to watch her and prevent unnecessary frustration before a bite happens. Because she is so independent and often plays by herself, I think this will be the hardest part for me – I really need to stay close so I’m able to spot issues before they arise.
I know I’ve asked before, but do you have any other advice or words of wisdom to help teach a toddler not to bite?
Shell
June 26, 2010This was the advice that my middle son’s preschool teacher gave me. Some people don’t like this route, but it really works and it doesn’t hurt them: when they bite, dip a q-tip in listerine and then swab their gums with it while telling them no biting. It worked very quickly.
I was sort of shocked when she suggested it, but when I tried everything else and it didn’t work, I did this and it stopped the biting very quickly.
Sarah
June 26, 2010Are you sure that’s not my kid? My daughter did the same thing at the same age.
A consult with a local parenting expert helped 100%. She told me to use the same words as you are using, but when I do it, to swoop in like an angry bat outta hell and really scare and upset her using a mean face, loud, angry voice. In combination I would take her by the shoulders and move her away from the other child.
It was mortifying to do in public, (I’m sure people thought I would spank her later or something, which I do not do) but it was very effective. Jackie stopped biting after two days.
This after 6 months of it!
Good luck with whatever method you try!
Anna @ The Baby Store Plus
June 26, 2010My daughter would bite her own wrist when she was frustrated. I took her to the doctor when she had created a wound from biting herself so bad. She suggested that I give her something to bite on when she was feeling frustrated. The something she suggested was a dog toy! A squeaky toy that would distract her when she bit it. The thought was that the squeak would be entertaining and distract her from the frustrated feeling, while the biting would ease the frustration.
I bought her two dog toys, a plastic newspaper thing and a fake mouse plush toy. When I would see her about to bite her own wrist I would gently pull her arm away and put the doggy toy to her mouth and tell her to bite on it because it wouldn’t hurt her. She looked at me pretty funny the first time or two but did a little bite anyway. She liked it and after just a few days she would grab the doggy toy and bite it herself.
I don’t remember exactly how long she used the doggy toy (its been 27+ years ago) but it really worked. Her wrist healed and she learned that there were better ways to vent her frustration then biting herself.
She is now a 2nd grade teacher and probably the most patient person I know. She was a bit of a perfectionist growing up, but still to this day she finds healthy ways to de-stress.
Hope my advice helps…if not, hopefully someone else with have the magic trick to help your little one vent her frustration in a healthy way.
{Hugs} to both of you!
Anna
Tia
June 26, 2010I had a friend that put Alum on her son’s tongue when he bit or said a bad word. It worked like a charm.
Bao
June 26, 2010I don’t have any experience with this because I’m pregnant with my first and my 11 nieces & nephews never had this problem (well, their parents spank them and instilled the fear of God in them…maybe that’s the difference). From what I’ve learned in school, though (I’m in a doctoral nursing program), I would wager that associating the child with a form of negative reinforcement that is most appropriate for her would be best. For instance, spanking doesn’t work for some kids…while isolation (put her in the playpen) does! Sorry I have no concrete advice to give :/
Aura
June 26, 2010My son had a big problem with biting his friends. I realized it was frustration with lack of communication skills. I started to tell him what to say when he’s upset (ex: no, I don’t want to…) and then we quickly removed him from wherever he was. The next time he bit in school he had to stay outside the room until I picked him up and then we went inside to apologize and left. He was very disappointed to miss baking and that left an impression on him until he started biting his brother. We tried a teething necklace and the thing that really worked that I really didnt want to do is we told him we only bite food and if we bite people we have to wash out our mouths and we put soap in his mouth. I hated the idea but it actually worked.
Tara
June 29, 2010I completely agree with this:
“Avoid a double standard. Avoid confusion by making all biting (like playful nibbles) off limits at all times.”
I think that sometimes they can’t differentiate the two. My son isn’t in the biting phase yet (he’s only 8 months)…but I remember from babysitting, relatives, younger siblings and haha even puppies (lol- don’t mean to compare your child to a puppy
…that they just don’t know the difference yet between playing and hurting someone! Hopefully this will be a very short-lived phase!
Michelle
July 9, 2010And all this time I am worried my twins are 16 mo. and don’t have teeth yet. I’ll take it as a blessing:)
HA! True. There’s always a bright side. My daughter only has 6 front teeth – but she uses them well! Er, not so well, I guess.