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A Mum's Guide
Today I thought I'd introduce you to the other' baby' in my life, my new family activities site A Mum's Guide.
Have you ever wondered what's on in your area for children, and new mums?
When you have a new baby it's usually the health visitor who gives you a rough idea as to what's on where and when for babies and new mums, but what if you're new to the area or just want to find out about other classes or coffee morning for mums and babies.
A Mum's Guide is an essential guide to what's on for expectant and new mums, babies, toddlers and older children in your area.
All the information that you could ever need is listed on the one site and new classes and events are being added nearly every day.
The events are listed under each location but there's also a categories section which expands to give you further information on the classes.
A Mum's Guide will become your essential guide for events in your area!
How To Deal With Biting
Today on the blog we have a special guest post from Joanne Mallon. Joanne is a freelance parenting journalist, a life and career coach and a parent to two.
Joanne's post on 'how to deal with biting' comes from her recently published book Toddlers: an instruction manual.
How to deal with biting
In situations like this, it becomes all the more important that you’re not constantly telling your child ‘No!’ – Limit them, and a short sharp “No!” will have an immediate effect. If you are constantly saying No to your child then it won’t be as effective as it would be if you did it less often. But when a child bites, you need to get the message across quickly – with your words, behaviour and body language – that this is not acceptable behaviour.
Give your attention to the child who’s been bitten rather than the one who’s doing the biting. Little children’s behaviour is essentially designed to draw your attention (whether positive or negative attention, they don’t really mind as long as your focus is on them), and so they’ll soon get the message that biting doesn’t work in this respect.
Distract your child with something else – perhaps a toy or something to chew on. It could very well be that their gums are genuinely sore and they need something cool to chew, like a cold carrot or a teething ring. Anything other than their best pal from nursery.
Don’t bite them back
There used to be a school of thought that the best way to deal with a biter was to bite them back, but this is outmoded now and frankly pretty mean. If you resort to tactics like this then you’ve most definitely lost control of the situation and probably need a bit of Time Out yourself.
What message would you be sending if you bit them back?
Hey, biting’s so much fun, mummy’s joining in!
Be scared of Dad, he can bite harder than you!
Parenting has moved on and so have you. Biting them back is not the answer. If your child is a biter, it’s a very common phase, and not necessarily anything you’re doing wrong as a parent. But if you start to bite them back, it will be.
Toddlers: An Instruction Manual: A Guide to Surviving The Years One To Four is available in paperback or for your kindle, and part of the royalties are donated to Home-Start, one of theUK's leading family support charities.