Ouch! What to do if your almost 2 year old bites (you).

Note the open mouth and teething ring in Isaac's left hand!

His biting was driving me to the edge, and sometimes over the edge.

At least he was only biting me, and sometimes Jeremy, or a good neighbor friend of ours, and not his park-friends. That would be really really bad.

But it was making me mad, really mad. I timed him out over and over again, but even though that had worked for other stuff like not opening the refrigerator, it didn't seem to make a dent in biting. Sometimes later he would sing a little song that went something like, "Don't bite Mommy, don't bite Daddy, don't bite Dampa....", but it was only a song.

In my despair I turned to the millions of other mommas on the internet and found they had published volumes of biting articles! I felt much less alone, and learned some interesting and helpful stuff too: I learned that little ones are not good at impulse control because the impulse part of their brain is very undeveloped (go figure!). We have major leaps of impulse control growth at ages 1, 3, and 6, and our brains keep improving on this until we are 30! Until we drink or do drugs and then we turn into a toddlers again. Lack of impulse control is one of the things that make toddlers so cute and funny when they say things like, "Mayonnaise is climbing up up up the door!" and of course what also makes them not think before they bite.

I realized I was taking his biting a little too personally.

I also learned that repetition in saying, "no biting." firmly does help, as does removing yourself from the situation i.e. not letting it happen in the first place. All the articles seemed to agree that biting your kid back is a very bad idea (I have to admit the thought did cross my mind) because you should be setting an example for how to behave. They said to explain instead that biting hurts and no one likes to be hurt, but don't explain too much.

All this info seemed very basic, but it was helpful, and implementing a combination of these strategies has really helped. He hasn't bitten me in almost a week!

Here is what I did and am doing:

1. Whenever I know he is about to bite I say, "No biting.", and walk away, or gently push him off of me.
2. I'm not giving him anymore time-outs for biting, unless he really becomes a wild animal and I just need him to calm down.
3. I give myself a timeout if necessary, for example going into the bathroom after he bit me and shutting the door. That took attention away from him and gave me time to splash cold water on my face which felt lovely and healing!
4. He often bites while I'm cooking, so I bring a chair over for him to stand on and help/watch me cook.
5. I offer him other stuff to bite.
6. I ask him what he actually needs and wants.
7. Finally, I stopped getting so mad. I heard that even getting mad gives kids attention that they crave, plus it was making me feel terrible.

If any of you reading are feeling as I felt, I feel for you! Take a deep breath, your wild one will be tamed soon!