Hitting,... Ouch!

About two weeks ago our little sweet funny girl started hitting. Well I guess the first time she did it was over a month ago. I remember it distinctly. She was getting into the pantry. I picked her up and said no, and she slugged me in the chin. I was stunned, one that someone so small could hit so hard and two that she was doing it period. I immediately held her out from me, and she went in to bite me. Again stunned. Now on a daily basis she is hitting either just me or both Jason and I. She's generally frustrated when this occurs so it's not like she's just coming up and hitting us. Although last week when she had a little friend over, she hit her little friend to. Her friend is only 8 months old and can barely stand so it's not like she could hit back, oh and of course I remember now that she also hit someone in her baby class last week and at story time. Dang. I have a hitter.

Who me? Hit??? You have it all wrong, Mama!

Now how could such a sweet little angel develop this behavior?? How? Seriously, do you know? My husband and I don't hit each other. We've never hit Tesla. We don't hit other people. What is the deal?  We don't have a yelling household, we don't fight, and we're generally pretty happy.

I of course started researching this, the What to Expect the Toddler Years folks have this behavior appearing around 20 months and that it could be: (amongst other things)

• Low impulse control, hit hit hit.
• To much pint up energy, suggestion give them something to hit, pillow banging toys. Run them around more. 
• Reaction to frustration. "Mama is mean for not letting me have [insert anything] and there for I will hit her over and over again." 

So what to do. Well no matter what it's caused from,  I have to do something. It's actually starting to hurt and I do not want this behavior to continue. One of these days she's going to get frustrated with a little tike and belt them one and that's not going to go over very well.

What am I doing now? I am working on more activity. Tesla actually takes two naps a day that last two hours. So it's not as if she's not getting tired, but perhaps this aggression can be curbed by running around more, and actually getting the aggression out of her.  Today for instance, we had our dancing and singing class, and then when we got home we played soccer and ran all around the house. She hoops and hollers with excitement when she kicks the ball.

We're also going to try some timeouts. WHAT??? I know I know, she seems to young but I have been reading this blog about organizing, and parenting in general, I asked the writer for advice. I like her style of parenting, doesn't mean I'll do everything that she does but I enjoy reading her blog and getting new ideas for home. Anyway, she said that she's not to young. In fact she wrote about putting her one year old in time out. You can check out her blog here. She said that you put her in port a crib with a few toys and let her sit there for 1 minute. She said that if I do this after a dozen or so times she'll learn that she doesn't want to hit Mama. So we're going to try it. Yikes, I'm not sure I'm ready for this, but again, as I rub my jaw, the hitting has to stop. I just need to get the port a crib back from my mom and we'll give it a go.

I'll let you know how it goes, in the mean time, please feel free to leave a comment and let me know how you stopped hitting or your thoughts.