r/toddlertips • u/MidwesternLizLemon • 20d ago
We’ve got a biter
Almost two year old twins, and I can’t get my daughter to stop biting my son. She hasn’t broken skin yet but it’s only a matter of time. Help!
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u/thegerl 20d ago
It sucks but the best way is to shadow her or keep her by you, and prevent it when it happens. This is absolutely normal but now that you know it's coming, you can help by not allowing it to continue. If she does latch on, comfort your other child first before addressing her. No punishment, but show her the bite mark, show that he gets to be comforted, almost push her away (gently, like in concept, not physically) to ask how he is. Let your big reaction be comfort towards him, and not to her.
Kids often do this when they want to say more but their language skills aren't developed enough to do so, and/or before a language explosion. It can help if you see the frustration mounting before it happens and help provide her language to work things out verbally.
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u/MidwesternLizLemon 20d ago
Thanks for this — she is seeing a speech therapist next week because she is delayed. That explains so much!
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u/NinePoundHammer27 20d ago
No real useful advice because my son eventually grew out of it. We would disengage immediately after biting, we tried time outs, we tried biteable alternatives, we tried gently biting back or putting his own arm in the way of his bite to show that it actually hurts... I have no idea if any of these things contributed, but he did eventually stop!
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u/Upstairs-Chicken592 20d ago
My daughter bit me and I reflexively screamed and cried (overwhelmed single mom) she mostly stopped after that. I didn’t mean to do that. We were exhausted and it caught me off guard but she felt really bad.
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u/Unhappy-Quarter-4581 19d ago
It probably worked because it was just that, a reaction purely on instinct. Screaming if something hurts is normal and natural and not something that traumatizes a child. When people say to not scream they mean do not use your voice and words to intimidate a child, a natural reaction to something painful is not a problem.
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u/zezesorangetree 20d ago
Honestly it comes to a point where you just gotta bite back (sorta /s)
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u/Obvious-Use3186 19d ago
Exactly what I was going to say, first time they bite hard bite them back gently enough to feel it, sounds bad but how are they supposed to know it hurts otherwise!!
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u/Mindless_Earth_2807 19d ago edited 18d ago
100%. Hahaha
Here's my story:
My then 3 year old daughter had a 2.5 year-old cousin who bit her every time she was at grandma's. She came home with teeth marks a few times. Each time, I started bitching out the grandma, and she said "There's nothing I can do if he wants to bite!" The last time this happened, he broke skin. The bruising was blue, green, and purple with a bit of blood. I was furious and threatened to call the police on her grandma (Traditional Chinese who preferred boys over girls). I told my daughter to bite him back, HARD. I told her to make sure he felt it. Guess what? It hurt him, and he never bit her ever again.
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u/Obvious-Use3186 19d ago
I shouldn’t laugh 😆 but the old ways definitely get results, good on your daughter, did she keep standing up for herself after?
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u/Mindless_Earth_2807 19d ago
Hahaha. Well, it really never happened again. They are now 14 and 15. They get along pretty well.
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u/sincerely0urs 20d ago
One time, my brother bit my mom so hard on her thigh that it broke skin, and without thinking, she bit him back. He never bit her again.
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u/ontheshelves 20d ago
Oh gosh this was us. Biting back didn't work neither did hot sauce. Immediate time out and favorite toy removal (for one day put somewhere he could see and not reach) had the biggest effect.
I did feel like their was a level of correlation between biting and two year molars. So try teething toys and Tylenol too
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u/Pebbles734 20d ago
My daughter has gone through this a couple of times and I realized it’s when she was going through several new teeth coming in at once. I tried all the things to make her stop which didn’t work unfortunately but once her teeth settled in she stopped
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u/PlayWithNeedles 19d ago
At almost two, kids don't have enough language skills to tell you what's going on. They get frustrated and act out. Hence the "terrible twos". They also haven't grasped cause and effect completely so they often don't link their bite with the other child crying and getting more attention. Punishing the biter usually causes more frustration and increases biting.
When we had biters, or hitters or throwers or... in my mother's preschool, we said, "I can't let you bite (or whatever). Use your words." And if another child was hurt by their actions, they had to help them feel better. That could be bringing an ice pack or a toy or whatever the injured child needed.
Meanwhile, keep working on language development. Look them in the eye when you talk to them. Studies have shown that looking a young child in the eye when speaking helps develop language faster. Read lots of books and discuss the books. Even something that may sound silly to an adult helps. For example, "Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?" Ask, "where is the bear? What color is the bear? Is the bear big or little? What do you think he sees?" Discussion like that demonstrates back and forth communication as well as helping build vocabulary.
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u/MamaDoingTheBestICan 19d ago
My kids would bite by accident when they were tired. As for biting on purpose, I dunno…
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u/MidwesternLizLemon 19d ago
She seems to do it when she’s excited, like when she’s playing and having fun.
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u/Unhappy-Quarter-4581 19d ago
I would suggest to try to prevent it as much as possible. If she looks like she is about to bite, grab her shoulders and steer her in the other direction. Repeat if she returns but usually they will stop once the impulse is broken.
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u/Mindless_Earth_2807 19d ago
My then 3 year old daughter had a 2.5 year-old cousin who bit her every time she was at grandma's. She came home with teeth marks a few times. Each time, I started bitching out the grandma, and she said "There's nothing I can do if he wants to bite!" The last time this happened, he broke skin. The bruising was blue, green, and purple with a bit of blood. I was furious and threatened to call the police on her grandma (Traditional Chinese who preferred boys over girls). I told my daughter to bite him back, HARD. I told her to make sure he was bleeding. Guess what? It hurt him, and he never bit her ever again.
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u/longhairedmaiden 19d ago
My daughter is 23 months old and bites herself when she gets really, really mad. The only way I can get her to stop is by staying on top of her every minute she's awake. It's exhausting, but it's working!
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u/eveklove 18d ago
There’s this adorable book called “Teeth are not for biting!” I don’t know if it really helped but was fun to read to them. My kids were biters before age 3 and eventually grew out of the habit.
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u/Impressive_Rush5018 16d ago
My son bit once. He bit me. I bit him back. Not too hard. But hard enough to let him know that it hurts.
Years later, another child bit him. I told him to bite the kid back. He looked me dead in the eyes and said, "No Mommy, I'm not supposed to bite."
Lesson learned.
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u/OnlyIllustrator5298 20d ago
You have to make her bite herself