Why is my 11 month daughter hitting?

Question

She is not in a daycare, my mother takes care of her when I'm at work. When she gets around her 2 and 3 year old cousins, she hits and grunts when they are bothering her. Is that a natural defense? How did she know that hitting will probably stop them from bothering her? I want her to stop hitting and try to talk instead. Anyone else had this problem with their infant?

Answer 1

Does she see other people hitting or play fighting? Maybe the other kids? Or maybe even adults? Could be on tv too? Things like that babies can pick up on. That is an early age though! You can knock her out of that easily I bet. Just pay attention to what she pays attention to and her surroundings. She is getting it from somewhere...could even be the smallest little thing...

She could even see that when she swats at her toys or something..like if a dangling toy she moves..it goes away? something weird like that..you just never know!

Answer 2

My 12 month old niece does the same thing and she's not in daycare either. I think it just comes naturally when they first begin to express their opinions. I just give her a firm "No!" or a "No,no,no!" every time she hits a cousin of hers and then I solve the problem that she's trying to deal with herself.

Sometimes I have to just remove her from the situation.

She's getting the point that hitting is unacceptable because now before she raises her hand to anybody she makes a sound to show that she's annoyed and then looks at whatever adult is in the room with her. She then waits to see if we'll handle the problem instead.

Answer 3

My sisters daughter just turned a year old, but she has been hitting my son for months now. Its natural! They just need to learn that hitting is not the way to solve problems. But dont freak out, they all do it!

Answer 4

the two cuzes were probably hitting each other and or hitting her so she feels the need to retaliate and that's what she has learned. watch all three together then take the two and three together to see how they interact.. she is to young to know atumatically how to hit and what it prevents.  

Answer 5

Very normal for a baby around that age to start hitting. My daughter started hitting and pinching around that age, she still does it and she is 13 months old. She isnt doing it to hurt you, she just did it one day and noticed that you had different kind of reaction to it, not like other things she does when you are happy. She is noticing your tone of voice and your reactions to things that she does right now. You just have to teach her that hitting is not right, my daughter stays home with me all day and there is no violence what so ever so i know it has nothing to do with seeing other people do it. She will grow out of it, in a way its actually teaching her, she is learning from it.