What To Do When Your Child Bites

Exciting news! 🎉Today is LAUNCH DAY for my new book, What To Do When You Feel Like Biting! This is the second title in my Big Feelings Books for Toddlers series. This book helps young children learn safe, empathetic ways to cope with overwhelming emotions — especially when they feel the urge to bite.

You can order it from Amazon here or from other retailers here.

The first 24–48 hours after a book is released are crucial for its success. Launch day sales signal to retailers (like Amazon or bookstores) to stock more books and promote the book to more people — which ultimately means that the book will reach the families that need it. Even if you don’t need this book for your own family, consider gifting it to your local library, preschool, or childcare center! Thank you for your ongoing support of me and my mission to help children learn emotional regulation skills!

And in honor of my book, here is a deep dive on biting, including how you respond to biting and how you prevent biting…

There are few worse feelings as a parent of a young child than hearing that your child bit another child. There are also few experiences more shocking as a parent than the first time that your child bites you or another caregiver. Yet, despite the stigma around biting, it is an incredibly common occurrence among young children and does not mean there is anything wrong with you, your child, or your parenting.

Research finds that biting tends to peak around 13 to 30 months and gradually decreases as children develop and learn new skills to express their needs in other ways. So what can you do while your child is going through this phase? How do you respond to biting when it happens and is there anything you can do to prevent biting?

How Do You Respond to Biting?

1) Assure safety and calm yourself down: Separate the biter from the bitten child and assess the bite for damage. Biting can activate your own flight-or-fight response so remember to use your own coping skills to stay calm in the moment.

2) Console the child who was bitten first: Attending to the bitten child before the biter achieves three goals— 1) Makes sure that the bitten child is not seriously hurt