Nine Month Old Pincher

[WyattsMom2008]

My nine month old is getting to be a painful little pincher. He often pinches his daddy's nipple hard and twists it when I am handing him to dh. The other day he grabbed a large section of my mother's cheek and pinched very hard. I have so far not responded in any way because I don't know what to do. Any ideas? Should I just warn people to be careful of his little hands? Hand him to dh backwards? LOL

[mnj77]

I have a 20-month old pincher. It's totally a comfort thing for her - she does it when she's going to sleep. I think she's gotten gentler about it, or maybe I've just gotten used to it. Or maybe since I've stopped nursing and it no longer involves my boobs it's not as bad

Anyway, sometimes it starts to drive me crazy, and the best cure I've found is to get a stuffed animal and keep guiding her hand to it so she can pinch that. Maybe a soft lovey would give you some relief?

Good luck - I know it can be like torture!

[trancechylde]

I have a pincher too.

Actually it's more like "raking" his hand over your cheek. With little nails this can be quite painful.

I think I messed up with the way I handled this; I started out saying "Ethan please stop that it hurts" and taking his hand and showing him "gentle touch" on Mama's face, and me doing a "gentle touch" on his face. He seems to like the attention and the fuss it creates though- he grins and does it again- even HARDER

He did it with my Mom and DH too, and their way of dealing with it was just to ignore it- remove his hand and carry on with conversation...it seems to have worked alot better than my way as he doesn't do it with them anymore but still does it with me.

I'm confused about this; I don't want him to think it's okay to do this to people, and I think that by ignoring the behaviour it's not letting him know that it's socially unacceptable- but by making a "fuss" about it, it's just giving it more attention which he loves.

Sorry not much help here- I'm interested to see what other Mamas say.

[Twinklefae]

We did gentle touch too, and redirected the pinching. I still end(ed) up putting him on the floor and walking away for a second sometimes. It just plain hurts!

[PreggieUBA2C]

Our ds4 was doing that too. All of our babies have had some painful thing they did, like skin-rolling and fingernail-raking. I have always just said completely dead-pan as I remove their hands gently and slowly, "Ouch. That hurts my body. Don't do that anymore, please." I just did this every time regardless of the reaction from baby- laughing, smiling, or surprise. I wasn't actually angry though, so I wasn't restraining myself; I was calm about it so I could express myself calmly too.

Ds4 also bit though, and I couldn't stay slow and calm about that because he drew blood many times. For this (and I suppose if the other behaviours were as severe I would have done this too) I just took him off the breast (quickly!) and gently placed him on his bottom on the floor in front of me while I composed myself. I stayed with him and he generally cried, so as soon as I was covered and put away, I would pick him up and console him, telling him that biting hurts my body and that if he needs to be finished, to let go instead of biting because then I hurt the next time we nurse too. Also that if he needs to bite, we have this to bite (give it to him, which helped him to calm and also put into his mouth). This may seem ridiculous, I guess, but my babies have all been very verbal very early, so explanations help them best to figure out what's happening.

Even if an explanation wouldn't have been useful, I would probably have done the same without the same length of explanation and detail. *I* wouldn't ignore it because sometimes that just necessitates more exploration- and more pain!

[Mom2Ian]

I don't have any wisdom or advice to add here, but just wanted to say that my (almost) 8 month old scratches and "flaps" his arms about sometimes that feels like hitting and I'm not sure how to handle it either. His most recent thing is trying to pull my lip off

He doesn't do these things intentionally to be hurtful and doesn't know they hurt. Hubby wants to start saying "no" but I wanted to try to put that off as long as possible if I could. I've been ignoring it, but it's getting painful, and as one of the PP said I think he needs to know that it is not okay to do. How will I feel if he tries to pull my 81 year old grandmother's lip off?

So, I'm seeking advice here too

[2lilsweetfoxes]

My son, though a bit older (age 5), but is nonverbal autistic has taken to grabbing my cheeks very hard (he's drawn blood at least once) when he's upset because I won't give him what he wants--usually for good reason. I just gently intercept his hands, put on my "stern mama-does-not-like-that" face, and guide his hands back to his side/lap and tell him "no, that hurts mommy and is not acceptable." Then I'd try to redirect him to something that is acceptable.