Hit, kicked, headbutted: when babies attack parents, and how to deal with it
- Babies and toddlers are often stronger and faster than their parents realise, leading to all kinds of painful accidents
- Dealing with such incidents – whether unintentional or genuine anger and aggression – requires patience and care
As a father, Cord Whitaker knows how to take it on the chin – literally.
When his five-year-old daughter, London Curtis-Whitaker, was two, she would butt him with her head with startling regularity, as though letting him know who the real ruler of the family’s house was.
“Her head has gone onto parts of my face, or my mouth and teeth, as she’d get fussy and squirmy,” says Whitaker, 40, an English literature professor at Wellesley College in the US state of Massachusetts.
“I’d experience some kind of face pain every couple of weeks. Then she’d cry with the impact, and I’d really want to cry in pain myself.”
While parents can find any number of books instructing them on how to keep young children safe, there’s a dearth of survival manuals for mums and dads looking to avoid injuries at the tiny, precious and too-often-dangerous hands of their offspring. Where’s the When Babies Attack handbook? When will we read How to Defend Yourself From Toy-Flinging Narcissists?
“You must remember, babies and toddlers are stronger and faster than we think,” says Benjamin Hoffman, medical director of the Tom Sargent Children’s Safety Centre at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland, in the US state of Oregon.
