10 month old discipline?

[holothuroidea]

It seems like a contradiction to me, but I met a mom who was trying desperately to discipline her 10 month old and it made me ask myself a few questions.

DD loves to pull hair, I just give my natural reaction which is an "OW THAT HURTS" remove her hand from my hair and move so she can't reach it again. Sometimes she cries like I took a toy away so I say "Sorry, but you can't play with my hair." That's pretty much the end of it.

So our babies were playing together, and her baby (K) tried to pull the bow out of DD's hair. DD did not complain, she just moved away from K. I was actually very proud of her reaction. K's mom proceeded to REPRIMAND K, saying things like "Don't pull hair! Do you like having your hair pulled?" and then she pulled the poor little girls hair!!!!

Obviously this is wrong, but I'm wondering if being on the opposite end of the spectrum, completely lacking discipline, is also a bad thing. I mean, she still pulls my hair whenever she can get at it but I really don't care. I don't make a big deal about it and I'm wondering if I should. FWIW, she doesn't seem to pull other people's hair.

I just never thought about disciplining her, or trying to get her to change her behaviors. Maybe I should? What do you think?

[holothuroidea]

I have a lot of other examples, too. I'm putting this in a separate post because I don't want these stories to bury my question up there, lol.

When DD finds her yelling voice, sometimes I will praise her. "Oh, I hear you my baby! What a beautiful voice you have!" If she's right next to my ears and she yells I say quietly, "You don't need to yell, I'm right here. I can hear you."

I guess it just kind of makes sense to me. She generally doesn't yell in public, so I feel like I must be doing something right.

So K let out a very hearty scream while we were eating and I said, "My, K, I love your singing voice! It's so pretty!" So her mom replied "NO it is NOT pretty. It is ugly. Yelling is ugly, don't yell."



I felt so bad for this poor little girl. This story absolutely heinous, but I have to talk about it because it's been eating away at me.

My DD, Evelynn, is very thin and very tall. 3rd percentile for weight and 65th for height. She doesn't look like a normal baby sometimes, she looks more like a little old lady!! So cute, anyway... K is an adorable and gorgeous baby with lots of yummy chubs and icy blue eyes, I just wanted to eat her up! So I was complementing K on how lovely her chubbies were and I had to pinch her fat and so on...

Her mom was offended and she took it out on K. She said, "Why can't you be thin like Evelynn." For the rest of the evening she kept telling me that Evelynn has "Long thin model legs," and things like that. I just wanted to punch her in the face!!!!!

I feel so bad for little K. She's been set up for failure because her mother is holding her to standards that no one could possibly achieve. It broke my heart!

Such a wonderful little girl, but I never saw her look happy. No amount of playing with her and praising and clapping would get her to crack a smile. I just don't think that's normal for a 10 month old.

[MammaV]

Sounds like little K is not going to have an opportunity to explore her world. A 10 month old shouldn't be hearing negative body image talk either! That's shocking. I don't have anything productive to say, but it would be hard for me to hang out with that family. Seems like K's mom has some unrealistic expectations when it comes to her baby.

[SandraS]

I don't think the phrase "10 month old" and the word "discipline" can really be used in the same sentence.

Redirect, redirect, redirect.

[1littlebit]

this is what we call faulty logic. some people think that if a child does something like pull hair you should pull their hair so that they know it hurts and will stop doing it. unless your kid is a mind reader thats not what will happen.

if a kid pull hair and you say ow that hurts they will learn that it hurts when you pull someones hair. they will also come to understand that they don't like to be hurt so they should not hurt other people either.

if a kid pulls your hair (or someone else's) and then you pull her hair if she makes the connection she will learn that if someone does something you don't like you should do it back to them. if she doesn't make the connection she will learn that mommy hurts her.

i don't understand why people think this is ok but i have run into that too. someone told me when her kid bits her she bites him back. i wanted to say um ok so don't be surprised when you get that call from the kindergarten teacher that your kid is smacking and biting people every time he doesn't get his way.

she told me people who don't discipline their kids (physically/ yelling etc) will have out of control kids. it is unavoidable.

[bendingbirch]

Oh, I so agree with the other posters. This other mother doesn't seem to have any understanding of childhood development at all, and I agree that discipline and 10 month old don't really go in the same sentence. This problem is only going to grow worse as the child grows unless the mother educates herself.
I would highly recommend this mother attend La Leche League meetings or Attachment Parenting meetings and look and see how other 10 month old babies begin. The Gesell Institutes don't really cover under a year, but those would not be a bad place to start. I believe Dr. Sears' "The Baby Book" has a section in it on developmental things as well by month.

This really blows my mind, where are we headed as a society with our small children? I rant about this kind of thing on my blog all the time (gets my energy out about it, LOL) but seriously, this is just sad.

Small children should be enveloped in warmth and love, in gentle physical hands, in rhythms of in and out- breath and in living in their bodies. I feel so sad reading this!

I hope this mother can get some help and educate herself as to normal developmental stages and positive guidance techniques! Hopefully you can be a great role model for her as well!

[Ruthla]

By saying 'ouch! that hurts mommy!" and moving her hand away, you ARE disciplining her!

"No discipline" would be letting the baby hit/kick/bite/pinch without letting the baby know you didn't like it

[Snuzzmom]

Originally Posted by SandraS

I don't think the phrase "10 month old" and the word "discipline" can really be used in the same sentence.

Redirect, redirect, redirect.

Yep.

[Hokulele]

Wait a minute... these babies are TEN MONTHS OLD?!?!? That poor little K. I just want to hug her and let her explore my hair and see how loud her little voice can get and kiss her chubby little legs.

I'd have a hard time watching that mom interact with her child. I wish I had good advice for you.

I don't think you are not disciplining your child - I just think you have a solid grip on what a 10 month old's motivations are. She's exploring her world, not trying to hurt you. Even if she did that to someone else.

If my DD pulled another child's hair I'd remove her from the situation, apologize profusely to the other mom, and make sure her baby was ok, but I would not reprimand my child. That is just WAY too young for that.

[holothuroidea]

Originally Posted by Hokulele

Wait a minute... these babies are TEN MONTHS OLD?!?!? That poor little K. I just want to hug her and let her explore my hair and see how loud her little voice can get and kiss her chubby little legs.

I know! Me too.

Fortunately, I don't have to interact with this person on a regular basis. I don't think I'd be able to hold my tongue for too long.

Thanks for all your responses. I kind of know in my heart that I'm doing things right by my DD, but watching people whose approach is so different from mine kind of makes me question it. You know?

[syd'smom]

Discipline means to teach (from Webster's: "Middle English, from Anglo-French & Latin; Anglo-French, from Latin disciplina teaching, learning, from discipulus pupil ").

And by redirecting and comments and helping - you are teaching.

[just_lily]

My friend was told by the local parent resource centre that it is not too early to be giving her nine-month-old time outs. Seriously. She is also pretty determined to teach her baby to "share" and scolds her whenever the babe takes a toy away from my baby (who doesn't care in the slightest).

I really don't get it, and can't understand how it is effective in the slightest.

I also have a hair puller and a yeller. She pulls my hair HARD and there is no way I could let her just explore, at least not now. So I tell her it hurts mommy and take it away. She is never too pleased about that.

When she yells really loud I have been using my fingers to lightly pat her lips so it makes the ah-ah-ah-ah-ah noise. She really likes it, and for some reason she gets quieter when I do it. She also seems to yell more when she has something to say, like "I am done eating and want out of my highchair now!" or "I pooped! Come change my bum!" It is her way of communicating, so I would hate to stifle that entirely.

[1littlebit]

i wonder how someone would get a 9 mos old to stay in time out. or do i not want to know?

[jempd]

So a parent resource center has no clue about babies' and children's development and how meaningless a time-out would be to a nine-month-old? Great.

[SandraS]

Originally Posted by jempd

So a parent resource center has no clue about babies' and children's development and how meaningless a time-out would be to a nine-month-old? Great.

That doesn't surprise me.

Look at all the people that publish books that have no clue. And some moms hail any publication as "expert" because, well, it's published. This is why Ezzo makes his mortgage payments.

[1littlebit]

maybe there should split the parenting section. section one is pg, baby, parenting books written by doctors, anthropologists, nurses, midwives etc. and section two can be pg, baby, and parenting books that are basically the opinion of the person who wrote it.

[EnviroBecca]

I think there is such a thing as 10-month-old discipline, and you are doing it exactly right! K's mom is taking a bad approach. Pulling her hair to teach her not to pull hair, in addition to the bad message 1littlebit noted, is problematic because a 10-month-old is not experienced enough to realize that the sensation on her head when you do something she can't see (because it's on her head!) is the same sensation she's causing when she grabs some fascinating hair and pulls on it.

The body-type criticism is just astoundingly horrible. Did you say anything about it to the mom? Like, "Babies come in different shapes, but they're all adorable."

Just Lily wrote:

My friend was told by the local parent resource centre that it is not too early to be giving her nine-month-old time outs. Seriously.

If they mean doing time-out with the formal structure and emotional tone you'd use with an older child, then yes, this is ridiculous. But nine months is NOT too early to say, "When you hurt me, then I don't want to hold you," and put baby in a safe place and move a short distance away, after you've already made repeated attempts to redirect. In fact, sometimes when the baby is really hurting and/or annoying you, this is just about the only way to resist harsher and less effective "discipline", because if you keep that hair-pulling baby on your hip, you're likely to get your hair pulled so many times so hard that you snap into physical self-defense mode and hit the baby, push him away from you, or drop him. Time-out is for both the child and the parent to "reset". The younger the child, the smaller the separation and the shorter the time, but the basic idea IS one that can be applied to older babies, and it DOES help them to learn which behaviors are unacceptable. See my article "Toddler Discipline in Three Easy Steps!"

[phathui5]

"OW THAT HURTS" remove her hand from my hair and move so she can't reach it again

For a 10 month old, what you are doing IS discipline. You don't lack discipline. A lack of discipline would be if you kept letting her do it or didn't say anything.

[Hokulele]

Originally Posted by just_lily

My friend was told by the local parent resource centre that it is not too early to be giving her nine-month-old time outs. Seriously.