I worked in childcare for 7 years, and I have worked with children that bite. I have taken so many child development classes and seminars, so I know that its a faze. That they cannot express themselves so they use there teeth to express how they are feeling. All those years of training just flew out the window with Morgan.
She is not only trying to bite me, but she tries to bite herself. I have never seen a child do this before and it freaks me out. When at her one year appointment I asked the doctor about it. She told me to ignore her when she bites herself. That I should pick her up, firmly tell her no, then I should set her down, and walk away if she bites me. If she bites a young child that I should pick her up tell her no, set her down, and go to that child. I know this stuff and yet I seem to have forgotten it.
When your child bites you or someone else(no children yet but she did try to bite her Nana), I think its very easy to correct. We don't want our children to be biters. For the most part that is. I have seen one parent tell me their child is not a biter at home, but the other parent tells you differently. I am not in denial, so I am ready to start correcting her the best way I can.
The hard part is watching them bite themselves and not reacting. My husband this morning saw her biting and started to correct. It just so hard for us to see her with bite marks on her hand. Its hard to watch her bite herself and not stop her. Sometimes its just hard to ignore, but we have to. We both know that when she get attention from it, she will only want to do it more.
Take Wednesday morning we were getting ready to go out to my sisters. All I wanted to do what get her diaper changed and get her dressed. Morgan wanted to play and she is not very fond of getting her diaper or clothes changed. She tries to bite me, so I tell her no and lay her down to change her. She begins to bite on her hands, and I ignore it. I can see her eyeing me, like mommy are you watching me. She does that for a few minutes then as I am snapping up her onsie she goes for her leg. When I ignore the leg bitting she goes for her toes. It takes pretty much everything I have in me not to say something. She finally stopped when she realized I was not reacting to her.
This is a faze and it will get worse before it gets better. The doctor told me she should stop by around 15 months. So we only got three months to go. This could be the longest three months of my life.
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I hate to tell you this...but I've got a 22 month old self-biter. He doesn't bite me or his Dad or his brother, but when things don't go his way or he gets overly frustrated, he will bite his wrists and sometimes his ankles. I'll bring it up with the pediatrician again at their 2 year check up just to make sure nothing is wrong or it's not a sign of something worse, but last check up he (the Dr.) made it seem like that was perfectly normal for toddlers to do? It's extremely frustrating. I feel your pain, trust me. I'm thinking that as Jackson gets better with vocalizing his needs, the biting will stop.
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