may have messed up here...

[heathermarie73]

I am having a big problem with ds almost 3years hitting. One of the issues is him hitting us when we are asleep to wake us up. When he hits we always wake up and have said no hitting. I have tried everything to get him to stop, talking to him, telling him it hurts, saying no hitting, even yelling because I got so upset with the constant hitting (but I don't believe that this is right and it only made things worse - now he yells at me too)
Two nights ago I was playing with him and pretending to sleep, he hit me. I told him now hitting. Then the stuffed bunny was sleeping and he hit the bunny. I put the bunny to "sleep" and then kissed him and "woke" him up. Then I asked ds to do the same. So all night long we played at sleeping and kissing the other on the cheek to wake them up. I thought anything besides hitting. Well today he said "put mommy to sleep" so I pretended to sleep and he hit me again. Now I was upset and angry and stubborn so I decided not to "wake up", well he hit me again twice and then lost interest. About a half hour later he said "put mommy to sleep" so I pretended to sleep but told him right away "we wake mommy with a kiss, can you kiss mommy?" and he did, no hitting. Am I completely insane. Please be gentle ... I am still wounded by the anguish I feel watching my son being so aggressive, the frustration I feel at not being able to get him to stop and my MIL telling me that I will be beat up for the rest of my life by my son because I refuse to hit him back.

[mom2grrls]

First instead of saying "no hitting" I would change to "gentle touches" or something else that doesn't include no. Kids tune out words you're saying often so he may be hearing "hitting" instead of what you want him to hear. Second, hitting is a normal thing for his age, they get frustrated easily and may find it fun. Does he sleep with you? can you set an alarm so you're up before he is?

[mama_mojo]

Shoot, I don't know if you're right, but that role playing sounds like a brilliant idea. Maybe throwing some positive phrasing in, too, will help.

[BellinghamCrunchie]

I think your attempts to replace the hitting with the kisses are a great idea, and its probably going to just take a while before he gets it. His behavior isn't that unusual for his age and it will probably resolve itself.

But it might help to go to sleep earlier so that you find yourself naturally waking before or around the same time that he does. This is because although he is waking you up right now, if he's like most kids, eventually he'll want to "explore" the house while you're sleeping and he might find things to get into that you couldn't anticipate.

Another idea is to maybe make the new "waking mommy up" behavior even more interesting. Maybe he'd like to ring a special bell that you keep on your nightstand, for example.

[bumblecat]

I'm not sure what part you are thinking may have been wrong - was it that you decided not to respond to the hitting that one time and instead pretend to keep sleeping? I thought that was good, since he only tried a couple more times and then gave up. It's what I would've tried. I'm sure you wouldn't just lie there if it escalated to harder and more persistent hitting.

It sounds like maybe you could keep still and keep your eyes closed while you say softly "we wake people up gently" or "with kisses" and not open your eyes until he did that. Unless he starts responding by hitting harder - then you wouldn't want to just lie there waiting for him to stop, obviously.

[heathermarie73]

thanks guys. Today was better. He managed to hit three times two of his cousins and his sister (he had more opportunity today, with all the kids together), I caught him twice before he hit (it would have been 5 times). I've been trying giving the attention to the victim and having him ask if the victim is alright. Once he gave his cousin a hug and the other time he gave his other cousin a kiss - I didn't ask him to do this, just asked him to ask his cousins if they were hurt, I guess it was his way of asking. I also had to have him sit down and calm down a couple times. But the day went fairly smoothly. The best outcome was when I saw it coming and deterred him. What gets me is that my MIL is now saying to everyone how I can't control my son. It really gets to me when people say things like that. I don't want to control my son, but teach him to have self control. He is not a robot, he is a human being. The hitting/sleeping thing is actually when I put him to sleep, he is determined not to sleep and sometimes I fall asleep first, at which point he would hit me and wake me up.

[rabbitmum]

I think it sounds like you are handling it just fine! It's very normal for kids this age to hit, it's a phase and won't last forever.

[Isamama]

It sounds like you are doing a great job! Sorry about your MIL. What a pain to have to deal with that.