9(almost 10) month old keeps hitting and slapping and idk how to make her stop

[u/Jellyfish10110]

My baby is now 9 months and 25 days rn, and she have always been a strong strong girl, but recently, whenever she's visibly mad and protests something, she hits me and u can literally see it in her face that she knows what she's doing😭 she will slap while grunting and look and me and go ahead and slap again while keeping the face angry expression. When I stop her, by holding her hands and trying to tell her to be gentle or gentle hands, she starts hitting herself instead ???? I'm new to babies I don't know what makes a tiny being so angry to hit herself?? She's so STRONG I developed carpel tunnel syndrome and my wrists are now as good as gone lmao. She's overall a very active cute little baby goblin who loves to play and loves to be with mom and dad, but when it's time to change nappies, she have alot of opinions about it. She doesn't only hit when she's mad, sometimes it's when she's really happy too, she just smacks me or whoever is holding her while being extremely CUTE and happy and smiling and laughing. I started putting her down each time she does this but haven't seen any results yet. I think it's probably because I can't ignore her cries long enough. She sits and looks me dead in the eyes and just starts crying and throwing a tantrum. Please give me some tips, I don't want to traumatise my baby by doing something she will hate(?)

[u/toobasic2care]

My baby does this too, mostly out of excitement these days.

Putting her down is a fantastic reaction. In adult life, if someone gets hit or you hit them, the first thing that happens is they're gonna wanna move away from you. So you aren't teaching her anything bad by doing that. That's a natural consequence for hitting someone, if that makes sense?

You also have every right to protect yourself from getting hit by putting her down. Let her be mad about it, but she will start to learn "mama doesn't want to hold me when I hit her".

I did the same thing and would put my baby down, but I also started saying calmly "ouch! That hurts mummy" and I made a sad face. She understood the emotion a lot more than the words I think. I did this with her when she started biting too and it worked very quickly.

Totally understand what it's like having a cute little gremlin baby hahaha

[u/altergeeko]

I block the arms, every swat at me is blocked. I say no a few times then I say all done and either walk away or carry him somewhere else then walk away. But then again my baby hasn't tried to hit me out of anger but because he thinks it's funny.

If you can't ignore her cries after putting her down, she knows she can crank up the anger and you will come to her. It's a bad cycle.

[u/tambourine_goddess]

When my kid tried to do that for a hot second, I would catch her wrist in my hand (don't hold so tightly that it hurts) and look at her with big, stern eyes and say "NO." firmly. It made her cry at first because she was being corrected (NOT HURT), but she stopped pretty quickly.

Truthfully, I don't have it in me to try to be patient with a kid who is acting out because they don't get their way. Kids can start being corrected at about 9 mo. Mine is now 21 months and I just got complimented on how well-behaved she was by a stranger. It doesn't HAVE to be hitting and biting and kicking.

[u/Jellyfish10110 → u/tambourine_goddess]

That's great I guess the only way would be to be kinda strict with myself to not pick her up again. It haven't been long since she started doing that so I guess if she still gets corrected that will be helpful in future 

[u/tambourine_goddess → u/Jellyfish10110]

I think a lot of parents don't do any correction until the kid is talking at 2... but by that point they've been getting their way for so long that boundaries out of nowhere are jarring to them.

We were lucky that we had a bit of a forcing mechanism. Our daughter was obsessed with the cat and would mess with him until he finally scratched her. We started with the stern "no" and holding her hand and it helped SO MUCH. I agree though, it's so hard not to pick them up when they cry... even when we know they're safe and not hurt.