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. It described the frustrated biter: “Frustrated by her inability to manipulate her environment or to make her needs and desires clear, and aware that her words won’t have the ‘bite’ she’d like them to have, she simply uses her teeth.”

“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:

1. Provide a nibble to prevent biting. Sometimes a child bites just because she’s hungry.
2. Never bite back. As with hitting back, biting back is confusing to the toddler.
3. 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.”
4. Avoid a double standard. Avoid confusion by making all biting (like playful nibbles) off limits at all times.
5. 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?