Question: How do I get my child to stop hitting?

Answer: In the first year of your child's life you might notice that they begin to hit. Alex's phase of this started around 14 months. This is actually very common thing for babies to go through, but that doesn't make it okay. How my husband and I handled this was by calmly telling Alex "no hitting, hitting hurts mommy/daddy". Then we move him from where ever the hitting took place. Even if this happened in a store, one of us would have to walk outside with Alex. It takes a lot of time and patience. We are using this method rather than spanking because we felt that would just reinforce the hitting behavior and as he gets older we don't want him to use violence as a way to fix his problems.

Labels: baby questions