Trying To Stop a Toddler From Biting Without Biting Back

One of the coolest things about Joey is all of the amazing people we meet because of him.  Right now we are operating with the A-Team of all therapy teams.  We visit Miss Jane for Physical Therapy.  This is her and Joey trying to figure out the creepy crawler, stander, treadmill and gait trainer.

We visit Mr. Rob for Occupational Therapy where we work on everything from crawling, standing, grasping to cranial massage. Mr. Rob is helping me learn how to use massage to try and help Joey with Neuro-Developmental Treatment.  


We also visit Miss Donna who works tirelessly with Joey to help develop his Speech and Language by using sign language, visual illustrations and verbal language.  Last week we talked about our new biting issues and how to handle them.  Joey has started biting me and Tommy (the two people he spends the most time with-- somehow Dad never gets bitten--he says it's because he gets out of the way and I call baloney on that one--I'm sticking with my time spent with Joey ratio reasoning). 


The tough part is he is still getting in molars and uses his mouth to explore almost everything.  Additionally, he also is starting to get frustrated at not being able to express himself, so I truly deep down understand why he is biting, but I also want to help him stop so he can start pre-school in the fall and make friends, not eat friends.


Here is our five-step approach to help Joey to stop biting.  After Joey bites or starts to try to bite:


1.  Set him down immediately.
2.  Say "Stop biting, Joey."
3.  Sign: Stop!  Sign: Biting!
4.  Hand Joey one of our super cool "Stop biting" illustrations.
5.  Hand Joey something he is allowed to chew on (Sophie the giraffe or other teething toys).


Here are the ASL signs for "stop" and "bite."

American Sign Language: "stop" The sign for "stop" is made by extending your left hand, palm upward. Sharply bring your open right hand down to your left palm at a right angle. STOP: Note: If what you mean to say is, "Stop it!" as in "Cut it out!" or "Knock it off!" see the one-handed version of "FINISH"

bite

The right hand represents a mouth and teeth.  The left hand gets bitten.

---

bite:

Here are the super cool cards (before we cut them out) that Miss Donna made us:

I read some very interesting ideas on how to stop a child from biting.  Some suggestions included isolation, which we have incorporated to the extent that we are trying to remove Joey from the situation and re-direct, but we don't believe in true "isolation."  Other suggestions included yelling very loudly to scare the child.  Then there was the suggestion of biting him back.  As tempted as I am to scream (I did yell once in pain and he started to cry and then we were both crying) or to bite him back, we are trying a method to really teach him to stop biting. 

So far no broken skin this week, but I'm pretty sure those may be famous last words.  

In the meantime, many thanks to our A-Team of therapists.   You are each incredible in your own way and we so appreciate your time, effort, dedication, compassion, empathy and professionalism.

Happy Tuesday!  What are you working on this week? 

Having Your Heart Walk Around Outside Your Body -- Celebrating Joey's Heart Day

Could a year really have passed?  How is it possible? I read a book where the author said that having a child was like having your heart walk around outside of your body.  It is so true.  Having children, especially when it is a time when you are separated from them, is literally like having your heart walk around away from your own body.  And it hurts. And this happens not only for heart surgery or other medical procedures, but it happens on the first day of school, the first time you drop them off for a play date or the first time you have to go out of town sleep under a different roof.


Today we celebrate Joey's Heart Day. It was one year ago today that we handed Joey over to the nurses and doctors at the University of Michigan Congenital Heart Center. 


There is life before his heart surgery and life after.


Life before was filled with much anxiety and worry.  The fear of the unknown. When we were about 24 weeks pregnant we found out about Joey's congenital heart defect.  We knew then that he would most likely have to have surgery due to the location and size of his Atrial Septal Defect.  


Life before heart surgery was hoping he his lips wouldn't turn blue or go into heart failure.


Life before was spent not knowing what life after would be like.  People told us not to worry.  That he would be fine.  


I tried not to worry. I tried not to think about it, but it was always in the back of my mind.  It's this fine line of trying to be super positive and having faith versus trying to prepare yourself for the worst.  It never works.  The worst comes when I am least prepared and feel the most confident. I guess as a protective measure, it is sometimes just easier to go to the dark places and be ready for it to happen.  

Then there was life after heart surgery.  This smile--his first post-surgery smile--says it all.


Dr. Bove was Joey's heart surgeon.  He was amazing.  He met with us the day before and explained to us step by step what would happen.  Before we left he asked us to please send a Christmas card every year to give him an update on Joey.  

 One year later there is still the reminder we see multiple times a day.

A reminder of his fighting spirit.  Of the lessons he teaches us every day.  Of how much harder he has had to work in his short life for things we take for granted like eating, talking and walking.  Of the amazing friends and family and doctors and therapists and early intervention teams that have helped Joey get to today.


Every day we have this memory of how precious life is and what it means to just try and do your best in every way possible.  


As my copy of "Positive Thinking Every Day" by Norman Vincent Peale says for June 8:

The way to happiness: keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry. Live simply, expect little, give much. Fill your life with love. Scatter sunshine. Forget self, think of others. Do as you would be done by. Try this for a week and you will be surprised.

Joey-- thank you for being our little lover and fighter.  For your unrelenting spirit and courage.  Happy Heart Day, Super Joe!

Big Little Brother & Big Little Miracles

So this is how it's going to happen, huh.  When we least expect it.  The Big Little Miracles are going to hit us when we least expect them.  Ironically this has been a "big" week of such little miracles.  

In the middle of reading our new favorite library book, "Big Little Brother" to Tommy and Joey I read the line about the little brother eating donuts.  I just happened to glance over at Joey to see if he was enjoying the story and there he sat, signing "eat".  Like it was no big deal.  Like he does it all the time.  Only he doesn't and we'd never seen him sign "eat" before.  It was also such a Big Little Miracle because not only was independently doing a sign, but he was also doing it appropriately for the correct word.  Go JOEY!!!!!  He now is able to sign: More, Eat, Milk (also saw him doing this sign this week for the first time), Hi, Bye and Stop. I'm still working on trying to teach him to say (or sign!) Mama.  Stay tuned.  He just grins at me.


Stop is our new word in an effort to not have to say "no" all the time.  He picked up the sign for "stop" faster than any other sign he has ever done.  Our need for an additional way to say "no" is actually quite funny.  When he was just a little guy-- only 5 months old, I had someone tell me that I would have to learn to say "no" to him and not spoil him.  That I should not let him get away with things just because he has special needs.  I literally laughed out loud during this encounter and said that I could not wait until he was doing things that I needed to say no to.  I said that if I say no to him half as many times as I have said it to his older brother that it would still equal about a million "no's" in his first few years of life.  


Now "no" and "stop" are major parts of our conversations.  Right now it is "STOP" being frantically signed and yelled at the same time as our little shark, aka Joey, tries to bite us.  Anyone have any good advice on stopping the biting?  I have two major bites and bruises right now from his chompers.  

Other advancements are how Joey and Tommy play together.  Below they are playing "Ghosts in the House" inspired by our daily dose of Scooby-Doo.  Man-- those are some funny cartoons.  I used to watch them every single day after school.  I was obsessed with mysteries.  The only downfall so far is that Tommy has taken to talking liking a valley girl and saying "like" before every single sentence.  For the life of me I  could not figure out why in the world he kept saying "like" until Tom reminded me....Shaggy.  Ugh-- the one downfall to our Scooby-Doo marathons.  Tommy talking like Shaggy.  The other funny thing Tommy is saying these days is, "Oooooh Yuck!  That's isgusting."  Yes.  Isgusting.  No "d" and it's pretty darn cute that way.

Nothing but pure joy on these faces.

The other big development (in our occupational therapy realm) is Joey's new ability to take most of his long sleeve, tight, baby Gap pj's off before we get him out of bed.  This takes skills! We are working on trying to engage him in helping us put on his clothes and take them off.  This new talent is very impressive.  What is also funny is that Tommy used to do the exact same thing.  Arms out, but head still in. 

Speaking of Occupational Therapy-- Joey has a new therapist on his A-Team.  And, what I think is super exciting for Joey, is that his new OT is a guy.  One of the reasons I like this is that Robb is very firm with Joey, he uses signs throughout our session (we are both learning more signs!) and it is a different tone of voice and personality for Joey to be exposed to.  We are now going to private therapy for speech, OT and physical therapy every week now and we are working hard and playing hard to help Joey meet new goals and as always-- to become his best self.  


Any advice on stopping a 22 month old from biting would be greatly appreciated!!!  Happy Monday!


Coming up on Friday-- Joey's Heart Day celebration!!!  One year ago-- June 8, 2011, he had his open heart surgery.  More to come!


Also more to come-- getting Joey ready for his Nystagmus surgery on both eyes.  Okay.  He is totally ready.  Getting us ready for this unexpected surgery we learned about today.  Ugh.  Happy Monday!