Having a toddler who bites others is immensely stressful. There is constant frustration about the biting. Figuring out how to get your toddler to stop biting is immensely difficult.
Feeling bad for the kid who was the victim. Worrying about how the other toddler’s parents are reacting to their child being bitten.
The immense judgment that occurs when you have “the biter” from others who don’t have a biting toddler.
As the parent of “the biter”, it is emotionally a difficult spot to be. Especially, if your toddler doesn’t do any biting outside of the daycare environment.
It seems there is only so much you can do from afar when you aren’t around for the actual incident. The struggle of having a biting toddler is real.
On the other side – you have the parents of the toddler who is being bitten. Many times, these parents are feeling immense frustration about their child always being bit.
They can get upset that the daycare or the parents of the biter aren’t doing enough to prevent it from happening.
To these parents – I say this: please, have some understanding. Biting is normal for toddlers.
And you can bet, that the parents and daycare are doing what they can to help the situation. The providers work at paying more attention to the biter. They try to make sure to prevent the situations that might cause the biting.
However, daycare providers have a ton on their plate – including watching all the other toddlers in the same room as your own. They truly are limited in what they can prevent due to the nature of their work.
Here is an honest summary of what we went through with our own daughter. There are lots of tips and tricks to try on how to get your toddler to stop biting.
Biting is Normal for Toddlers
If you take nothing else away from this article, know this: Biting is normal.
It is a normal part of the toddler experience.
Often times it happens while toddlers are teething. It is a way to make their gums feel better as the teeth break their way through.
It is also a way for toddlers to explore. They do all they can to learn everything. Sometimes, that means putting things in their mouths. Other times, it may mean biting to see what it feels like.
It can also be a ploy to get more attention to themselves if they feel like they aren’t getting enough. Or, it could be a test just to see what happens when they do it.
Toddlers are at a learning stage and biting is a normal part of that.
7 Tips on How to Get Your Toddler to Stop Biting
Before I get into the tips, note that if you are around when your child bites another, make sure you get the child who has been bitten safely away and make sure they are okay.
Then, it is time to work with the toddler who has done the biting.
Many of the tips below are things to address when the situation is not heightened and after the bite event has occurred. This is because it can be hard to work with them on these issues when they are still feeling highly emotional.
1. Tell them “No Biting” and Redirect
This tip is probably the oldest ones in the book for intervening when a toddler has bitten another.
Calmly tell your child “no biting” and redirect them to do another activity. A lot of times the biting is a reaction to multiple children wanting the same toy.
Sometimes, all that has to be done is redirect them to play with something else and the biting will stop.
The key to this tip is to remain calm. If the toddler gets a big rise out of you, they might think of it more as a game and want to repeat to see the reaction again.
Similarly, if the toddler is wanting some attention, if you have a big response, thus giving them the attention, they crave, they are likely to repeat the biting again because they will learn it works to get the attention they want.
2. Talk About Their Feelings
When she started biting regularly, she also wasn’t talking super well to express herself. We started talking more frequently about feelings.
When she would be experiencing a strong emotion, we would name the emotion that they might be feeling. This helps teach them the word to associate with their emotion so they can express how they feel.
Make sure that when you are around your child and they have their big feelings, validate the feeling. “I see you are feeling mad. It’s okay to feel mad. It’s not okay to bite.”
Let your toddler know that it is okay to experience the feeling and don’t make them feel bad about it.
We also would get into what to do with the feelings when she had them. Make sure to give concrete examples and practice them with your child.
Roar!
For example, we said “Roar like a dinosaur when you are mad.” Then we’d practice the “Roar!” together.
Talk to Teacher
The other alternative we gave was, “Talk to your teacher when you are feeling upset.” I made sure to use the specific teacher’s name so she knew exactly who to go to.
Deep Breathing
The other way we taught our daughter to work with her emotions was to take deep breaths. I’d tell her that deep breaths can help calm you when you are mad.
Then, together, we’d take a great big inhale and blow the air out really hard, so it sounded funny.
Even now, I notice her taking deep breaths when she starts to feel a big emotion to help calm herself. Overall, it is a great thing to be taught because it calms your nervous system down.
3. Read Books About Biting
Another way to get your toddler to stop biting is to read books about it. Books can show from a third-party perspective how it is to be bitten.
What I like, is that the books can show examples of the situations they might encounter. It gives you a great chance to walk through the situation and how they might respond.
Books also do a great job of showing being bitten from the other child’s perspective. It can help them understand that being bitten hurts and that people don’t like to be bitten.
4. Quality Time
I heard from Big Little Feelings that spending 5-10 minutes of quality time with your toddler, doing something of their choosing, can help them feel more cared for.
While I already spent quite a bit of time with my daughter, being the preferred parent, I stepped it up.
Typically, our mornings were all hustle to get out of the house.
Instead, I started making an effort to put down my phone and spend at least 5 minutes in the morning before daycare hanging out with her.
I made sure to let her know we’d be having our special 5 minutes together. Then, I let her pick out what she wanted to do. Sometimes, it would be to read a book, others she’d have a special toy she wanted to play with.
This time created a nice break from our normal bustle of getting ready for the day. Plus, I notice that she does behave better on the mornings I make time to spend with her.
For us, I really do think having this time in the morning was key. We already spend quite a bit of time after work and daycare together. But there is something about having that time, right away in the morning, that made her feel extra cared for.
5. Bite Necklace
Another option to get your toddler to stop biting is to use a bite necklace.
We tried this at the suggestion of our daycare. They had several really good experiences in the past with these necklaces working. I think for some kids, it may work. For ours, it did not work on a regular basis.
She still would feel her anger and was still biting when she was upset. Granted, it was a necklace, but it wasn’t a great way to learn to work through the feeling.
Plus, if we forgot the necklace for a day, she’d still go ahead and bite a friend.
6. Stick to a Routine
Toddlers behave better if they know what to expect. Routines help with this.
If there is going to be a deviation from the normal routine, explain it to your toddler beforehand so they know what to expect.
For example, the other day my daughter got to go on a field trip with her daycare. Knowing this could throw off her normal routine, I brought it up right away at the beginning of the week.
“Hey, did you know you get to go on a field trip this week? You’re going to go to a farm!”
Then, when it was the night before, I sat her down and said “Tomorrow, daycare is going to be a little different. You are going to go on the field trip to the farm.”
The morning of, I reminded her of the field trip again. “Would you like to see what it will look like?” Then I pulled up pictures of the farm she was going to on my phone for her to see.
I explained what sort of animals she might encounter. I also told her that it might change the flow of the day and that everything wouldn’t be the same as it normally was.
Thankfully, at the end of the day, she had a great report from the teachers saying she had a great day.
7. No-Bite Chart
This was the final tactic that we tried with our daughter. I’m not sure if it is “the thing” that worked, or if it just coincided with when she grew out of the biting.
I made a sticker chart to track when she didn’t bite. There were columns for each day of the week and cartoon pictures of biting occurring with the red cross through them. We also had the picture of her “prize” for the end.
I made sure to hang the chart at her level, so she could see it and in a place we saw every day – the closet door in our dining room.
When she had a successful day, I let her put on the stickers. Of course, this led to the stickers being everywhere, but I always made sure to stick a star on the day, so we knew how many days she had.
The goal was to have no biting for a week straight. At the end of the week, she would get a prize that she picked out earlier on.
It only took two weeks, for her to stop biting after we tried this tactic. We kept on talking about how if she worked hard at not biting, she’d get the prize at the end.
When she finally achieved a straight week of no biting, she beamed with pride. She was so excited about the new toy she had picked out (paw patrol cars). Note on this, we made sure to have the prize on hand for when she did hit the full week, so there was no additional waiting.
For weeks afterward, she would look at the chart, now completed, and say “I don’t bite anymore.”
We would praise her and say, “No you don’t. That’s so great!”
Work With Your Daycare
If your toddler is in daycare, it can be really helpful to work with your daycare teachers as you work through the biting.
First of all, come at it with an attitude of understanding. They have a lot of kids they are working with and can’t always be with your child one-on-one.
Also, remember that you are on the same team. The daycare doesn’t want your child to bite any more than you do.
Talk to them about what the situation was when the biting happened. Sometimes this can help you employ the tactic we talked about above more easily.
You can also ask them for suggestions on what to do and ask them what they do when the situation happens. I have found that they have dealt with similar situations in the past and have some good suggestions on how to help.
They were able to suggest the bite necklace to try with our daughter. I didn’t even know this was a thing, but it did help to an extent.
We ended up moving our daughter up into an older room where the kids could more easily communicate with her. When at least one child can talk, it seems to ease the communication issues they have with one another.
Plus, whomever the mom was of one of the children that was being bitten was furious and angry with us and the daycare, so she demanded that something be done.
It can be helpful to make sure you are both on the same page about how the biting is handled so the child can experience similar reactions everywhere.
The key here is to remember that you are on the same team and to have compassion for the daycare teachers. They are doing everything they can.
Let us know how it worked for you
Parenting is difficult and can bring out strong emotions from all parties. Try to give some grace to the parents you encounter and know that they are doing all they can.
Also, make sure you give some grace to yourself. I used to beat myself up over situations like this and it didn’t help anything. As a matter of fact, it usually made situations worse. Over time, I’ve worked really hard to be easier on myself and focus on my self-care to improve the state of my mind. It had helped a ton.
The tips above can help guide you as you learn how to get your toddler to stop biting. It can be a long road. Some toddlers never go through this stage. Others stick in it for a long time.
If you, like me, are struggling with a biting toddler, let us know how the tips work for you. If you have other suggestions on what might work, drop those into the comments below. We’re always up for hearing new tips that might help other parents.
Best of luck on your journey.
