Dad Chat

Right off the bat, let me clarify it is the infant doing the hitting. With that out if the way, I can proceed. My daughter is now about 19 and 1/2 months old. We're getting into a highly active stage now and certainly she is becoming more willful. One aspect of this is that when she is interrupted for a diaper change, meal, or car ride, she has begun wildly (but intentionally) slapping the interruptor. My understanding is that this is a fairly common issue, and that she is struggling with sharp transitions. We try and ease this as much as we can rather than just scooping her up with no warning. It's a mixed bag of results. Sometimes we're able to make the transition relatively smoothly, and other times she's slapping us repeatedly as we carry her to the changing table. Does anyone have methods they've used to minimize this difficult phase?

I think verbal notification is a good start: "looks like you went potty and need a change. I'm going to bring you take change your diaper in just a minute."

I would hold my kids hands/arms and let them know, "I don't like being hit. I'm not going to let you hit me. I'll let your hands go when you're ready to stop hitting."