Baby Blog

Baby has been head banging in some form since he was just a few months old. Baby Nik likes to head butt and head bang. The older he gets the more frequently he exhibits this odd behavior. Then I saw another little boy doing it the other day and started to think that maybe I shouldn’t be embarrassed by my baby’s strange behavior. Maybe I should blog about it.

It started as baby Nik’s way of showing affection. We thought he was copying the cat. She tends to nudge you with her head when she wants attention or when she tries to give affection. When you would ask baby Nik for a kiss he had a tendency to give you a friendly head butt in the chest instead. We thought that’s all it was but as he grew his range of head behavior grew.

The head banging sometimes occurred when Nik was bored and tired. He would look through his toys, harass me for a while, peruse a few board books then start gently banging his head off the rug. I always tell him to stop doing it and when he was younger he always did.

Then we went through the “if I bang my head on this will it hurt” stage. Around 12 months Nik began experimenting with his head banging behavior by banging his head off of a variety of surfaces and objects. This made me cringe but all my friends said not to worry about it as he was a boy and: “boys will be boys.”

Lately baby Nik bangs his head for two main reasons: to get positive attention and to get negative attention. If I chastise Nik for bad behavior he will bang his head off the nearest surface as a way of preempting his upcoming tantrum. Alternately Nik likes to bang his head off the couch or the bed to get positive attention, make everyone giggle and to play his beloved role of class clown. It’s exhausting for me either way.

Of course I had to peruse the baby expert’s opinions on the matter. They state that head banging is a behavior common in approximately 20 percent of baby boys and they should grow out of it by age three.  They claim it is caused by a number of things from self soothing, an attempt to relieve the pain of teething, frustration and attention seeking.

I think my little guy is using it mostly for attention. He is a spirited child and does not self soothe at all (lucky mommy). When he’s teething, baby Nik points to teething tablets or these days asks for “med zen.” Yep it’s mostly boredom and attention seeking with my guy.  But knowing he’s not the only baby boy that does it helps. Knowing he’ll grow out of it one day helps a lot.

Phew I feel better! Sharing both the good and bad of your baby’s life is really helpful.