Beware of Toddler

[glatt]

You missed my reply then. Our 28 months old son will also occasionally bite.

We noticed that it almost always happens as he get tired. Usually just before nap time or just before bed time. If he's had a long, difficult day, then he's more likely to bite that evening. Quite often we can step in and diffuse a situation before he actually bites someone. That's the key for us. Prevention is much easier than reacting after the fact.

When he does bite, we sternly tell him that there's no biting, and biting is wrong because it hurts. Then we'll try to get him out of the situation that caused him to bite, either with a very short time out, or simple distraction.

Mostly we try to comfort the victim using a lot of exaggerated sympathy for them. This hopefully lets him empathize a little more with the vicitim and realize it's painful. It also takes the attention away from him, so he isn't "rewarded" with attention for behaving a way we don't like.

All this is actually working. He isn't biting as much, and he knows it's wrong.

I also think you should talk to the daycare providers. They have certainly experienced this before, and should have helpful suggestions. Also, since you really need to deal with the behavior immediately, a lot of this falls on them anyway. It's hard for a two year old to see a connection between events (biting and your response) when they are separated by several hours of time.

Good luck. One way or another, your child will give up biting. (Unless he's named Mike Tyson.)