Today, at 17 months old, Liam is in love with jumping on the bed. He is starting to hate being confined to a stroller (it's OK for walks around the neighbourhood, but for trips to the mall he wants out). He still loves reading books, but now prefers books with simple pictures of animals, people and things over books with drawn illustrations and a storyline. His new words for the month include cat, meow, waffle, bird, eye, hair, water, and Captain. Cindy says that she couldn't believe the difference in him when he started going back to her in September: after being apart for only 2 weeks, she thinks he is much more of a conversationalist now (even if most of it is still gibberish) and he's mimicking the older kids more and more every day.Unfortunately my kiddo has acquired another new skill this month as well. Yesterday I pulled out his notebook to read what Cindy had written about his day, and it included this little tidbit: Natalie's parents noticed a mark on her arm and asked her about it, and she told th
em Liam bit her. I wish I could say I didn't buy this story, but that isn't true. For the past couple of weeks Liam has been biting us at home. Not in a vicious way, mind you, more as an experimental type of thing. We tell him no and that biting hurts, but I was still thinking he was too young to really get that. Well, after reading Cindy's note, I picked Liam up, looked him in the eye and said, "Liam, did you bite Natalie?" And with that he leaned into me and gave me a nip on the shoulder. (I take that as a resounding yes.) I'm not sure what to do about it other than to keep telling him no and not make too big a deal of it. I made the mistake early on of freaking out when Captain nips me on the ankle, and now he thinks it's a full-fledged game. And I don't want to screw up my kid the same way I ruined my cat.
4 comments:
All I can say as the mom of the kid who always got bit by one particular boy at daycare (is this a boy thing?)act VERY apologetic to the mom of the bitten kid, otherwise she will start to not like Liam and say mean things about your parenting skill behind your back. :)
With Emily, what has worked really well so far is to say "Love Mommy gently, biting hurts." Then I've shown her to pat, hug or kiss me instead. This works when she goes after the cat too enthusiastically too. Something similar might work for Liam, especially if he's biting because he's experimenting/thinks it's a game. If it's out of frustration, I have no suggestion. Emily bangs her head on the floor when that happens and so far, the only thing that works is ignoring it no matter how much it seems like it hurts.
Um, yeah, what they said.......Gavin went through this about a month ago and almost EVERYDAY he bit someone. For about 2 weeks. It was bad. Finally he just stopped..... We kept telling him "we don't bite our friends, we bite food".......sounds lame, but it finally sunk in! Now we have moved onto hitting......"hands are for hugging, not hitting!" ........BOYS!!!
I don't think it's a frustration thing, he's just experimenting. I apologized to the mom, who was quite a bit more miffed than I think she needed to be. Ah well. I'm sure the criticism of my parenting started long ago!
Post a Comment