This New Behavior

Claire, now 14 months old, is quite mobile and has begun to talk more and more, but I remember one day at daycare she was sitting on the floor and a toddler walked over and proceeded to punch her in the head. I yelled across the room and, in slow motion, I ran towards her. I wanted to yank his puny little arms from his shoulder sockets, but now our struggle recently is HER hitting other kids and throwing toys at the infants in daycare.

Daycare is at my work and the other afternoon when I picked her up, they told me about this new behavior. When something new comes up, I usually mention it to my mother, who, this time, said “Well, at least she’s not biting kids in the face like you did!” I remember this vaguely from when I was younger, but now here I am on the other side of things. Even though she’s only 14 months, she’s already 34 inches tall. So people don’t think of her as a baby, but more like a two year old, and people expect more from her.

We use a stern “NO” and remove her from the situation when she does things that she shouldn’t do. And when she’s sitting with us, she sometimes hits us in the face. We say “No” and hold her hand. My wife wears glasses and sometimes Claire knocks them off of her, or she will crack a plastic toy over the bridge of one of our noses. She’s learning slowly, and so are we.

Another problem we have had is that at daycare they give her a time out in her crib. This form of discipline isn’t the best idea because they want the baby to sleep in the same place where they reprimand her.

Claire has taken to not sleeping at daycare at all, which is a concern since on the weekends she usually has two 2-3 hour naps and sleeps 9-12 hours at night. I wonder how other dads handle hitting at day care when it’s your kid?