Headbanging toddler

[Twilightcraze]

Hello there...my son is 20 months old and he recently started to bang his head on the ground during his tantrums...i read up a little on it and it said one reason might be autism but my son does not show any of the signs of autism...he hit his head so hard that a big bruised bump formed on it....im wondering if anyone else has had this problem and what to do about it! I dont want him to end up breaking his nose or something like that. Please help!

[ra11en]

My 22mo DD has recently started this antic. She is not autistic. She is a normal toddler.

We try to give her no reaction when she does it, regardless of how hard she does it. One time she did it hard enough to bruise and form a goose egg. We made her sit with an ice pack on her forhead (she hates ice packs) and gave her timeout. That along with the actual hurt of banging her head has lessened the occurance and the force of it quite a bit. When she does start banging her head, I pick her up and move her to the run / carpet area and then walk away. I will tell her "I don't speak tantrum, so come talk to me when you are finished". They are getting shorter and shorter in duration of late.

Don't give him a reaction or give in to what he is throwing his tantrum over otherwise you will be reinforcing to him that that is the way to get what he wants, and he will continue those antics. I know its hard to watch him do that, it kills me when my DD bangs her head on purpose, but you can't let him think its okay.

[tskeehn010]

Our 2 year old son just recently started this. It happens when he throws the most terrible tantrums. I try to ignore them but what makes me keep a close eye on him is the fact we have tile floors instead of carpeting. In the past weeks it is not just the floors though it is what ever he is closest to like the wall or a chair or even me. We have had him checked out for autism because of another problem we were having and the person we talked to said that he wasn't, that it was just a phase that he was going through. They said that some children get over it sooner than others.

[Writer_Mom]

My son use to do this when he was a toddler and it scared me to death. I thought he was going to hurt himself bad. We tried a number of things, but nothing worked. Since nothing seemed to work, we'd place our hands behind his head and tell him no, using a firm voice, of course. Eventually, after about a year, he stopped banging his head on the floor. I don't know if what we did helped him stop or not, but I'd like to think it did.

I wish I had more advice, but everything else I tried with my son failed. All I can really say is I know exactly what you're going through and how it makes you feel.

[tifflynn]

My son used to get upset and slap himselp in the face- HARD. He is 15 months old. He would also do it if we told him no. It scared the crap out of me and made me very upset. I would usually just take his hand down and tell him no in a firm voice and he would stop untill he got upset again. I told the doctor about it and he really didnt say anything except its somewhat normal. A couple months after he started doing it he just stopped. It slowed down alot and then just disappeared. Im glad he stopped but i dont know why he did. Iv heard to ignore it but its really hard to when your child is hurting himself. Mine just stopped on his own so maybe yours will too..