My 15mo is a vampire

[lach]

I know that lots of kids bite. I know they eventually learn not to. But the biting from my 15 month old is EXTREME. He bites constantly. He draws blood. Through bulky clothing. You should see the bruise on my DH's arm. It looks like a giant hickey. I know this is awful, but I recoil when he snuggles me, because the snuggle often ends with a really sharp bite. My poor almost 3yo is scared of him. He crawls near her and she starts crying and saying "don't bite me! Don't bite me!" The other day she sounded so sad and said "I don't know why he bites. I want him to stop. It's not nice." She should be eligible for sainthood with what she puts up with: I'd be lying if I said she never hit or pushed him back, but usually she tries to gently tell him to stop." It really breaks my heart when she's doing something sweet for him and he responds by biting her.

I have NO idea what to do. Like, none. I hate to compare kids, but my daughter wasn't perfect but she always outgrew unacceptable behavior with a few weeks of redirection and nos and moving her out of the way. But this has been going on for months, and shows no signs of letting up. He thinks it's hilarious. He seems to think it's a sign of affection. He does it and I frown and say "no-no, no biting" and move him away a bit and he cracks up and goes "aaaaugh" and dives at you again. He thinks it's funny when you recoil, too. I'm sure some advice will be "don't have a reaction and he'll get bored," but how can you not have a reaction when someone is biting you to the point that he is drawing blood? Those little baby teeth are SHARP.

We've tried redirection, saying no, trying to ignore (as I said, that one's hard! And I can't really expect a 2 year old to have the self-control to do it too), buying him every teething toy under the sun.

I really feel like I'm at the end of my rope here. It's making everyone in my family miserable. Except for him. He thinks it's the funniest thing in the universe.

[One_Girl]

Have you tried walking across the room when he does it? My dd only went through a short biting phase when she wasn't happy that I was talking to her dad instead of her, but I found that preventing it when I could by telling her no biting very firmly when she was about to go in for a chunk of my leg and when that failed getting up and walking across the room helped. Walking away was very effective. I was very worried about her keeping any negative habits like that because she was my only child so it may not be as gentle as things some other posters have done, but if your child is scared of her own sibling and cries when he is around then I think that walking away and making yourself (and your dd) unavailable for more biting is something to explore.

You mentioned that he thinks this is affectionate. Does he see you and your husband kissing? If so then maybe don't kiss in front of him for a while because it may be that he thinks that what he is doing is the same as what you are doing.