Biting - When Toddlers Attack!

My son was 7 months old when he was bitten about 6 times on his face.. right before a planned family photography session. It was a home daycare and the caretaker left all the kids of various ages in the basement and she had to go up to take care of something. When she came down, he had all the bites on his face and ears. The other kids would not tell which kid did it. the provider said that she suspect which kid but I was so mad, I wanted her to tell me who so I could talk to the parents and put a stop to it. My son had black and blue teeth mark bruises all over his face... I counted about 6 bites in total including one on his ear. He did not want to go back afterwards. There was another little boy same age as he is and he escaped unscathed. Why him and not the others and why a defenseless 7 month old baby. He was just barely beginning to crawl. So... in about few months, I was able to find an excellent daycare and I transferred him there and I have not looked back since. Everytime I hear about bite stories, I tense up. My son's situation really bothers me - it was an attack by a child.. not one time bite or anything but truly an attack. You should check again with their bite policy and check around. I wish I pushed the issue more and found out WHO because I'm deaf and I had a deaf daycare provider plus few deaf or child of deaf adults in there... it's a small community and I still cringe to think that one of those could be a sociopath around my kid. The new daycare is all hearing and the provider has become one of my closest friend. I honestly will never forget this situation... ever.

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This is a hot topic for me. I have 2 two-year-olds so if one is doing something violent, the other one is on the receiving end. Neither is acceptable to me. I feel the "modern" approach to dealing with this is unfair to both. I feel a really strong, immediate reaction is needed every single time a small child is violent to another.

Three strikes and out isn't helpful in my opinion. First of all, that means someone is being victimized (at least) three times, and that sends the wrong message to the victim(s). Second, there is not much a parent of a tot can do if the incident happens at school. A delayed reaction is little better than no reaction at all. And kids don't act the same way with different caregivers.

Neither of my kids has ever bitten in my presence. I suspected a bite once, and warned that there would be serious consequences if anyone bit in the future. Then nothing. But 2 weeks ago, my nanny reported at the end of the day that one child had bitten the other. She'd put the biter in time out and let it go at that. I was pretty upset and told her that she was to inform me immediately if this happened again, because I would have a different discipline approach that she wasn't comfortable with. The other day, I was informed that the biter "tried" 3 times to bite her sister, but was headed off each time. This has still never happened in my presence, so there is nothing I can do about it. I told the nanny that since this has only happened in her presence, she needs to be the one to stop it, and it needs to stop ASAP - that the next time there is even an attempt there needs to be a memorable consequence. I do believe the child is doing this because she thinks the nanny will be lenient. Totally unacceptable.

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I totally understand your frustration, and I also think biting is unacceptable. This coming from the mother of a biter, although she only bit her brother in her biting stage. But the truth is, every daycare or school is going to have some child that causes some type of conflict, so you need to help control what you can control, which is your sons reaction to the problem. Teach your son the importance of using his words and keeping his hands to himself, and that if anyone ever tries to hurt him that he should go to the grown up in charge to help work out the problem. And try to teach him that the child biting him is not a bad kid, or someone he can't be friends with, but someone who is having trouble using his words. You don't want to teach him to be afraid of school or another child, but to empower him in how to handle conflict.

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I've went through the same thing only a few weeks ago with my 15 month old. He was bitten twice in a matter of a few weeks by the same child, then a week later it happened again but by another child.

It's very frustrating because you pay a lot of money to protect your child, while your not able to be there for him or her and when something happens you feel helpless about it. What can you do quit your job? Find another day care? Either one of those options cannot be viable for everyone.

You can only hope that your child can learn from these experiences and teach him or her that hurting someone else is wrong and makes the victim feel bad.

Since my son has been bitten, both my wife and I have been bitten by our son, thankfully he has not tried to hurt anyone else yet.

We are trying our best to address the act of biting by getting down to his level and holding him by the arm and telling him in a sturn voice that it hurts when you bite and it makes us feel bad.

It seems to be helping, does anyone else have any suggestions?

FYI I've heard the response "Well bite him back!" and were not going to even contemplate the idea of doing that.

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I am so glad we made the choice for me to stay home and raise our kids. Seems we avoided a ton of headaches, heartaches, and other worries.

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Angela, what makes your situation so horrifying is how severe it was, and that it happened because no one was watching the kids--which should never ever happen. That was a really bad situation, and I would have freaked out too.

There are biters in every daycare, and the three-bites rule is about the only real way to deal with them. Bites happen fast and sometimes the bite-ee doesn't even cry right away or realize it (this has happened to my son) which makes enforcement pretty hard on the caregiver.

And when my son was the bite-er, time out was the only thing that worked with him; spanking is actually less effective (and we don't like it anyway) then having to stop playing and sit in a boring corner.

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Many children who are becoming verbal go through a phase of biting...or in some cases it is not biting but it is hitting or punching or some other physical phase. We object so strongly to the biting because it is quite primal, but it is no different from the child who is hitting another. I dont think that day cares have a three strikes for hitting..... If a daycare is a good daycare, they have very caring people who are not "strangers" and know the children very well and work closely with the parents on all sorts of issues. My son went through a biting phase and he was also the victim of a bite. When my son was in his biting phase, the daycare providers did talk with me about it and ways that we can work on trying to prevent it. It was something they took on too as their responsibility during the time he was in their care to watch and look for the signs that he was about to bite (and there usually are signs). They tok to shadowing him for a while to try to redirect him when they saw that he might bite. Eventually he became more verbally proficient and the biting stopped. The child does not usually do it with any malicious intent, they cannot form that at that age. It is usually when someone has grabbed something from them or has done something to them and the child does not have the words or capacity to respond in any way other than biting (or hitting...).

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I have to agree with what "ps" has written. As children learn their verbal communications skills, they experience huge amounts of frustration at not being able to clearly communicate their wants, needs, dislikes, etc. The only way thy can express themselves for lack of a verbal outlet is through a physical reaction like biting or hitting. And keep in mind that not all physical reactions are bad - they learn how to hug and kiss too when they want to display affection.

My son is on the receiving end of bites at daycare. I will admit, the first couple of times he was bit, it was a shocker. But talking with the staff helped me understand that this was not some malicious attack, but one of frustration on the part of the biter. The biter and my son are best buds. They are lost without each other. And being the only two boys in a class of girls, they tend to be a little more physical in their play. The bite happens in the "heat of the moment" and after a time out or redirection (if the staff sees it coming), the boys are back to playing like nothing happened.

I'm good friends with the biter's mother and I know how deeply upset she was at this happening on a frequent basis (sometimes a few times a week).I know the parents worked with the staff to help stem it. The biting has dropped off as the boys have learned to use their words. Frankly, without learning how to communicate verbally, this would still be continuing - something I'd be willing to bet money on!

My approach has been one of understanding. These toddlers are not old enough to act out with malicious intent but they do need to learn ways to express themselves in an alternative fashion to biting or hitting. As long as the parents and care givers (who are NOT strangers in my book) work together, the situation will resolve itself in time. Try to put yourself in their shoes for moment - how would you react if you couldn't talk? Then help them learn better ways to respond.

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Biting is developmentally approrpiate and socially unacceptable. It is our job as adults to teach them appropriate responses. Toddlers do not have the verbal skills necessary to communicate to others and find out real fast that hitting and biting gets an immediate response (toy they want gets dropped, attention they want is focused on them, etc...).

Toddler classrooms are notorious for biting incidents because of the age of the children. As a teacher, my discipline in the issue is based on what is occuring. A child who bites while another child is taking food off his plate is completely different than a child who bites because he wants the blue truck that someone has.

I also make sure there are plenty of chewies available. I put these on pacifier strings so that they don't share them and they are readily availalbe; many times toddlers bite because it feels good on those teething gums. So, what we see as "no cause" is actually just because their mouths hurt and they need relief.

The other thing to remember in these situations is that toddlers don't have the capacity to see other children as other children. They are the world and they control the world and there is no one else but them in the world. They aren't biting to hurt someone else, they are biting to get a result.

If I have a toddler who gets bit by an child because he took food off his plate, I'm moving that child away, not the biter. He was defending his food. Think like a toddler, what would you do?

I count attempted bites as bites as well. The only reason they are "attempts" is because a teacher or adult were quick enough to get their hand in the way.

Three strikes in toddlers is completely inappropriate. Three strikes in a preschool child who has plenty of vocabulary and language skills...well, what are you doing the help that child get over this problem. Just dropping them is not going to help him in any way. They need to learn the appropriate skills so that they don't need to bite.

This is a huge issue that has so many different causes and necessary reactions, I could go on forever. Here is a start (that's not mine) http://infanttoddlerexperience.blogspot.com/search/label/biting

I will be looking into it on my site as well in the coming days:
http://thepreschooltest.blogspot.com

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We went through a phase of biting just after our little guy turned two. We were getting worried that he was going to get tossed out of daycare.

My wife read about Elizabeth Verdick's Teeth Are Not For Biting board book on a blog and we grabbed up a copy at a local bookstore. We included this in our nightly reading for a few weeks and have not had any issues in several months since. We still go back and hit this book again from time to time. And the few times our son has been bitten, we've explained that the other child simply didn't understand what teeth are for and we needed to help them learn. This seems to have worked too - we've even heard Liam saying, "No, no, Noah (one of the other boys that had bitten him once or twice), teeth are for smiling, not biting."

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I have to say that kids will be kids and some bite and some don't. My oldest is almost 8 and she used to bite me all the time, I tried to teach her that you don't do that and it's not right but honestly I think she just outgrew it, I don't think it was anything I did that corrected her. My youngest is 2 1/2 and she doesn't bite to hurt, she likes to pretend she's a puppy and carries things around in her teeth (and barks!) but she doesn't bite me on the shoulder when I pick her up to calm her down (like my oldest did). Thank God and knock on wood she doesn't start! She actually went to a daycare where one of the children got kicked out for biting too many times, it was a little boy that was around a year old. I was really suprised they did this but I guess it got bad. I know you can't keep an eye on them literaly 24/7 and things will happen even if you are there and watching, but if I Angela who's child got bit like 6 times at someones home daycare I would probably be livid. I don't blame her for being upset at all, but I would look for a different homecare or daycare where there isn't seperate levels. It's hard enough keeping an eye on children on the same level with different rooms but to actually add another story or set of stairs would worry me. Of course that is just my opinion and everyone is entitled to their own opinion and childcare is expensive and its hard to find someone you really like and trust with your little ones.

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I understand some parents being mad about their child being bit but as a parent of a biter, I too am also mad when he tries to bite. My son is just 13 months & he bites a lot. He tries to bite me, daddy & Grandma. We always tell him no biting & if his teeth are bothering him, try to give him a teething toy or something. But we are starting him in daycare in January, would they kick him out if he bites? Any comments how to get him to stop biting? Most of the other comments I read were with from people with older kids, how can I get a 13 month old to stop biting?

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My son had the same thing happen in day care except he was bittten at least 12 times by the same little girl. Each time the kids were not being supervised. Unfortunatly we can't all be stay at home moms these days and some of us do HAVE to work. All the parents did was have her put in time out by herself. She eventually grew out of it but, at my sons expense. Now I am staying at home with my son and I have noticed a big change in him. On the negative side he is more clingy now then ever. I believe that is because is is afraid of going to another daycare.

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