10 month old hitting me in face!

[touting]

What can I do to stop my 11 month old from hitting me in the face?
I grab his hand and he just laughs. I say stop and no and he just laughs.

[sunnmama]

I usually take my baby's hand and touch my face gently with his hand, saying "gentle....gentle...." After a few times, I can say "gentle" when he raises his hand, and he will stroke me gently rather than hit.

If he is in a hitting mood (and the hitting persists), I say "Ouch! That hurts!" and put him down....or get up, if we were on the floor together.

[touting]

Oh wow! Okay, I will try that. Thank you!

[sprinkle pocket]

when ds has done that, i try sooo sooo hard to not *react* emotionally. i do try to respond authentically. for me the difference is that my brother was pretty abusive, so i have a quick reaction to physical pain from another person. i try to normalize that response to let ds know that it hurt or surprised me and we have a commonly used phrase in our home "that's my body." i held his hand(s) gently b/c he often laughed and wanted to do it again and talk to him about what he did, if it was an accident, what the real effects are, including that i feel disconnected from him and want to feel connected to him b/c i love him. i tell him i'm holding his hands b/c i know he'd feel sad if he hurt me again. sometimes he really escalates emotionally, crying, yelling, pulling away. i talk to him about it. i often figure that this is what he was really trying to express. other times i realize he was just wanting attention and it changes quickly into giggle time. i'm learning slowly. usually it doesn't take very long to make my point, he gets it (he's almost 3 now) and we can move on and not get stuck. if he's wrestling with dh and he hurts dh and dh is irritated i look in the room and ds asks for my help negotiating by saying "papa is hurt mama". it was really cool when he started doing that. it helps diffuse things when i come in and just start verbally telling them what happened...it was an accident, papa's tired from working, it hurts his face when his glasses are body slammed against his face, ds missed dh and wants to re-connect, etc. it also gives dh some mental time to switch gears and not be irritated, but compassionate.

i had to learn to emotionally separate from what ds does. calming explaining and helping him learn rather than shaming is a huge help. it's worked and ds totally gets it...now if dh could hurry up and finish re-programming himself from his authoratative upbringing! he's getting there. (me too)

[touting]

I normally react emotionally and that is not good. He hits me, my husband and our baby sitter. It is getting embarassing.

[sprinkle pocket]

it sounds hard. it'll pass. just try to be consistent and calm and talk with dh and babysitter so you each are calm and explaining and loving. especially loving. i think when we're loving, the kids are attached to that and know they're ok. when we're not, they test to see if they're still not ok, or something. there's a way to gently hold him and explain it. keeping our cool is key with ds. that way he was learning from what we were saying instead of reacting to our reaction. he then knows we're listening to him and observing what he's doing rather than trying to get him to meet our emotional needs. then dh and i comfort each other and talk about it. trying to model the calm compassion we're hoping he'll keep.

i know it can be maddening. i'm sorry it's happening.