How do I stop a 1yr old from hitting me?

[msiddiqi]

DS just turned one. He's a very active, amazingly wonderful baby. He's kind of taken to hitting me though. I know he's not doing it out of anger or anything - he just sort of doesn't know better. But sometimes he really goes at me, and it's really hard to distract him. Today I got cracked on the head with one of his wooden toys, and I've gotten hit so hard with a glass that it left a bump on my head. He also pulls my hair A LOT! Many times he pulls strands out of my head.
I've sorta let it go for the last couple of months, but it seems to be increasing.
Not really sure how to stop it. I don't want to "no" him to death - and "no" really doesn't work around here anyways. I don't know too much about GD but am starting to read about it to prepare myself. Any suggestions would be welcome

[PikkuMyy]

"no" doesn't make any sense at that age. And it doesn't show him what to do. I would move yourself out of the way when he does it, and then show him how to touch you gently, using words to explain it. You need to redirect, redirect, redirect, and then make a big deal out of his softer touches.

[cjr]

Yes. When he hits you look hurt and then take his hands and show him what a gentle touch is and use the words "gentle, touch mommy gentle". When he goes to hit or pull your hair, quickly respond with "gentle" before he starts hurting you, taking his hand and showing. That is what worked with ds. By actually taking his hand and leading him in a gentle touch he was able to figure out the difference and eventually understood what I meant when I said the work gentle to him.

[whoyeta]

be alert to any unusual stressors. A rise in aggressive behavior can often signal that a child is under some pressure in his environment. If that is the case, of course, you'll want to lessen or eliminate that stressor

[The4OfUs]

In addition to the pp above showing your DS what gentle is, I would add that instead of saying "no", you can say something age appropriate like, "hitting hurts, please be gentle". If you can catch him mid swing and stop him from making contact, even better. You don't have to be "mean" by physically preventing him or asking him to stop, but you should be serious.

I had this problem with DS, but he was older, about 20 months...I would physically stop him from hitting me, tell him it was NOT OK to hit people, we need to be gentle...sometimes my reaction was funny to him, so if he kept at it, I would walk out of his reach and say something like, "I won't let you hit me, we don't hit people." The phase lasted about 3 months, probably, on and off.

Consistency is probably the most important part of it, you have to do whatever you're going to do every time...which can be exhausting, but it will eventually sink in.

Lots of good ways to rephrase "no", I'm sure others will have suggestions too.

[DevaMajka]

That was my ds exactly! He'd hit, but not out of anger at all. It was more like "hmmm what happens if I do this?" lol
What we did, was tell him not to hit, we don't like to be hit, etc etc.
Then we'd tell him something he COULD hit. The couch. A toy. He'd want to hit with sticks and stuff a lot- I think he was experimenting with different sounds things make. So I'd tell him to hit the coffee table, the wall, anything that I could see that would make a noise when he hit it.
When he was a tad bit older, I started telling him how he could touch me, if that's what he was trying to do. (The idea in redirecting is to honor the original impulse. Most of the time when he was hitting, the impulse was to hit something, not that he wanted to touch me, or interact with me. kwim?). So I'd do some exaggerated motion touching his face from top to bottom, then move his hands to do the same to me.
When he was a bit older still, I noticed that sometimes hitting was due to him trying to communicate something to me. So I tried to find a way for my (nonverbal) ds to communicate to me, without hitting.

I guess I make it sound like the hitting went on for a while, but really after the first couple weeks or so, it was few are far between. And it really just took a reminder, and it was like "oh yeah. I'll hit THIS instead." And he was merrily on his way.

I think just saying "no" isn't helpful at all at that young an age (well, I guess I usually say no, but it's always followed by an explanation and a positive alternative). They have no idea what to do INSTEAD. lol Plus, saying "Don't hit" just puts in their minds a picture of ...hitting. lol.
I find that my ds is now generally happy to do some alternative. Even if its not exactly what he wanted to do in the first place.

[msiddiqi]

Thank you all for the awesome suggestions. This is exactly the approach I was trying to take, but I couldn't get it quite concrete in my head. Today I demonstrated for him how to touch mama and he actually starting doing it immediately, stroking my face and neck .
He does like to hit other things, like the couches, pillows, just about anything he can get his hands on. We encourage it actually, but I think he started to feel like he could do the same to me.
Thanks again!