My 2.3 yo dd is a biter. Last year she went through a phase of biting both us and children in her nursery regularly (say every other day over a 2-3 week period). This was associated with a lot of new teeth coming through and she would bite following a scuffle over a toy.
She's in nursery three days a week and we worked with them over this period to address the biting (e.g. looking for triggers, responding in the same way). The biting eventually stopped, until recently.
She has bitten four times in the past three months at nursery, two of which have been in the last two weeks. Apparently the most recent bites have happened when she has been playing by herself and another child has interrupted her (but not tried to remove her toy, just come over to where she's been playing). With the obvious exception of the biting, I'm told that she engages well in all the activities and plays happily with the other children.
In the past, we've told her to use her words and go to a member of staff if another child tries to takes a toy off her, using the book 'teeth are not for biting' to back this up. But as the latest incidents aren't associated with a toy, I'm not sure what the trigger is or how best to handle it. Her nursery respond by telling her that biting is bad and get her to apologise to the other child. She's not biting at home but if she pushes or tries to hit either dh or I (no more than once a week) we remove her from the situation and don't engage with her for a minute or so.
Dd is lovely (most of the time!) but I now dread the nursery run and it feels like a walk of shame. Is there anything else I can be doing?
Apologies for such a long post, it's difficult to talk about biting in real life without feeling that you're being judged as a parent.
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Please help me understand biting triggers
17 replies
Justguessing · 02/05/2013 05:45
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