help for a biter?

rlthomas7

Well, I have a biter. The odd thing is that he only bites when he's happy and excited. Like I'll be playing with him and he'll get all crazy excited run up, like for a kiss, and bite. Sometimes he opens his mouth and presses it against my arm, leg, chest, whatever, and just kiss, but then sometimes he bites. So far he's bitten me, my mom and one of  his friends when they were hugging/wrestling/chasing each other.

If I raise my voice, he laughs like crazy. If I give him a time out, het gets up and does it again because he seems to love time outs. I'm open to suggestions!

ILoveBoys

Does he give close mouthed kisses yet? (Like puckering up his lips) If he doesn't, maybe you could try to teach him to kiss that way, so you can tell the difference when he wants a kiss and when he's feeling the need to nibble? My DS2 has done this about 3 times, and I sit him on his bottom wherever we are and tell him "no biting" and then I walk away from him to the other part of the room. He doesn't like that much. I don't know. I'm curious to hear what other people think.

neverblushed

He's at the prime age for "experimental" biting.  At this stage it's basically more curiosity and/or frustration than an intentionally hurtful thing.

Don't be thrown off by the laughter -- at around this age my son used to laugh at my stern-voiced scoldings, too.  If a 5 year old laughs at you, it's because they're disrespecting your authority, but not a 1 year old.  He's not really disregarding your scolding, it's just an awkward, startled reaction.  He doesn't need to cry or act contrite/sorry to have gotten the message that this is a "no" at this age.

Be 100% consistent in your "No BITING -- It hurts!"  Ignore it if he laughs/giggles.  Put him down and ignore him after he does it.  He'll get the picture and find something else to do shortly.  Don't be tempted to bite him back to "show" him -- it'll confuse him.