Head banging 15mo old?
Our 15mo old daughter is really starting to show her likes & dislikes in the world, which is great.
What's not so great is when she doesn't get what she want, she often times collapses down on the floor with a whimper, and starts banging her head on the ground. The collapsing part is totally understandable, but the head banging part?
Is this normal?
2 Answers
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so when our daughter was about 9-12 months she started banging her head on the crib at night if she was upset that she had to go to sleep. As she got older, she started doing the floor head banging when she got upset about something or didn't want to go to sleep. Just enough to make a loud noise but not enough to ever hurt herself (she would only do it on carpet, not hardwood floor). We asked our pediatrician and he said it was a behavioral issue that would go away as she went older. It took her until she was about 3 1/2 - 4 to really stop the behavior completely and now it's as if it was never an issue. I would still followup with your peditrician though if you're worried that it's not just behaviorial - doesn't hurt to follow up.
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Completely normal. Remember she does have nerves there and she can sense what feels good and what doesn't. She won't actually hurt herself. Self preservation starts early. She'll learn. My son started that around 13 months, and within 6 weeks he'd realized that carpet was softer than tile. He'd get angry in the kitchen and run into the living room to bang his head in there. And then he'd come back to the kitchen to find an audience and try to convince us to follow him into the living room where we could watch his temper tantrum. We didn't bite. We didn't follow him. We didn't try to stop him either. We just ignored it. He stopped all by himself a month or two later.
Probably should say "gentle head banging". She's not trying to hurt herself. I don't think our child has a disorder, just a variation on tantrum. But I too am curious to know if this is a form of tantrum others have seen/dealt with... it's very dramatic!
- andrea, Apr 29, 2010