Biting!

[cristeen]

It's GOT to stop. Its been going on for months and i have zero patience left with it. I rarely have enough warning for distraction because he does it out of the blue. He likes chewies, but will only use them if i get them and put them in my mouth.

He caught me totally off guard today during lunch, chomped down on my upper arm and left a bruise. It took everything i had not to smack him. I am so sick of being bitten. Please, someone must have dealt with this.

[confustication]

Put him down whenever he bites, and hand him something appropriate to bite on instead. Wash, rinse, repeat. Sadly, that's all I ever found to be effective.

I think the first question has to be why/when is he biting?

[shanniesue2]

DS has bitten me a few times. He thought it was a game and that my reaction was funny. So I stopped giving him a reaction. After one bite, I told him firmly, "Do NOT bite me. If you bite me again, I will go away." When he bit me again, I went into the other room and shut the door. He hasn't bit me since.

[kismetbaby]

N doesn't bite, but he does do a few other annoying things--and he only does them when I am cooking or sitting at my computer. He clearly hates it when he looses my attention to those things and I think he has figured out what will get my attention fastest.

Is there a pattern like this to your guys biting?

[always hope]

Ella started biting me a few months ago. In hindsite it was due to being sick and also things being very frustrating for her. Also when she was overtired. She also started hitting me. She never did it to anyone else so I figured it was her trying to communicate with me because we are so close so she was being very 'real' with me. I would put her down straight away. Say No very firmly and walk away. A couple of times I showed her where it hurt me and told her it hurt. With the hitting I just put her down and told her to use gentle hands.
I also tried offering more snacks during the day and avoiding her getting too tired. I also discovered she had an ear infection, which we have treated and she is much better.
Hope you can find something which works. It is not okay to be bitten!

[_betsy_]

DD2 is 21 months and every time she is teething, she bites people. Almost never ME, though, and never while nursing. The other day when she was at Grandma's, she bit her cousin. I wasn't there (Grandma watches my girls for a couple hours 2 days a week when our work schedules overlap, their two young cousins are there 3 full days a week), but I'm guessing there was a squabble over toys, she was teething and/or hungry/wet/tired/otherwise cranky, and took it out on her cousin. I feel awful, but the only other person she has ever bitten is her big sister (my 4 yo) and that was also when she lost it over a toy (big sis *was* being obnoxious) while teething and hungry or tired or whatever.

I've resorted to teething medication even though she doesn't still seem to need it because I don't want her biting anyone else!

[coldandsleepy]

Grey went through a really hardcore biting phase about five months ago. It started with biting while nursing, then progressed to biting anywhere. People gave me all sorts of advice, and I wish I could repeat it for you because this really seems to be one of those different solutions for different babies things.

But the only thing I remember is the one piece of advice that FINALLY worked for us. :P Someone suggested that every time he bite me, I physically put him down and leave him down for some set amount of time. I think she wanted me to try 5 minutes, but I started with 60 secs and that works for us.

My kid really does NOT like to be put down when we're doing something fun together, which seems to be when he's most likely to bite... it's like he gets so super excited that he's just gotta chomp something. Which is fine, but I don't want to be the thing he chomps.

I hope you find something that helps, biting sucks. :/

[JordanKX]

DS is not biting me, but pulls my hair. After reading this thread, I had to start one for the hair pulling. Seems like an equal ammo.

Hugs, Christeen!

DS has just found his upper tooth (finally an almost bonafide tooth), marking 3 at nearly 13 months. I know he's changing the way he chews, now having that upper tooth. Who knows, maybe biting will be coming. Ouch!