My daughter likes time out, help!

We've started implementing time out with my 20 month old daughter if she does something like hit or bite or dangerous things like climbing on the table.  She doesn't usually do this more than once a day. 

So we stearnly say no hit, or no bite, place her in the corner, and she sits there for a short time.  Then we let her get up and she gives us a hug and says sorry, and we remind her no hit- she usually says ok.

It worked great for the first few days, but now she's started asking for time outs!  I don't know what to... she's not supposed to like them.

We hug her lots of other times and pay her lots of attention when she's doing positive things.  It just seems weird that she now likes time out.  Any suggestions?

So parenting is crazy. Everyone has ideas & their either validated when it works for them or it doesn't work and they continue to do it & hate parenting or they try something else. I'm in the latter boat.

I am sure you are going to get a million peices of advice.

Mine is to tell her "no hit" just like you are & then redirect. If she keeps us & throws a fit, then it's time to have a "time out" in a safe place where she can calm down.

For us, that's her bedroom. We totally ignore our kid when she screams & go in when she's gotten it all out, but she's older (almost 3). When she was younger we had a 1-2 minute rule depending on how out of control she was.

Also, if there's a way to move the dining room chairs out so she can't climb up them then you might prevent that problem before it starts. I totally know you can't childproof everything. My daughter was really creative.

My daughter is almost 3 and sometimes she does like timeout. I don't see a problem with it, because she's still calming down just like she should. She's figuring out ways to help herself calm down & feel better = win for all of us.  I used to make her sit on her bed as punishment, but then I changed my mind. Now she just needs to stay in her room until she's calm.

We don't use it as a punishment per say, we use it as a tool to help her calm down when she's defiant, out of control and we can't reason with her. We try those 3 first so we can encourage her to use her words when she's upset.

She's also older, though. When she was younger we kept it simple. "Don't hit, hitting hurts" etc are easier for babies to understand.

Anyway, good luck. I'm of the philosophy "do what it takes." Try different things, see what works, when it stops working change it.

^^^ I agree completely!

Time out is just that: taking time out from what you're doing to calm down and redirect. We took a lot of advice and ideas from "Parenting with Love and Logic." In this book, the authors emphasize letting natural consequences guide a child. No punishments. When children act out, they recommend having them go to their room and get it all out of their sysem, like freshbakedpi does with her daughter. Once our daughter is calm, we set a kitchen timer for 5 minutes and when it's up, she can come out of her room. The extra time in there makes sure she is, in fact, 100% calm.

I've never had to deal with hitting so I'm not sure what the best advice is. Maybe saying, "Dear, if you're going to hit, I can't play with you because it hurts." It lets HER make the decision: either she hits and plays alone or keeps her hands to herself and has a playmate.

Asking for a time out isn't a bad thing if you're not using them as punishment. Echoing freshbakedpi again, she's learning to calm herself and if she enjoys doing that, great!

As a mother of three (21, 16, and 11) I can tell you this. Your daughter has hit a very frustrating stage of her life and has realized that time-outs help her cope with her frustrations. Congratulations for teaching your child a very important coping mechanism-- 'me time'! At 20 months she is embarking on what people refer to as the Terrible Twos, which is caused by the fact that she understands a great deal of the English language, yet does not know how to vocalize what she understands. Try to imagine being mute and not being able to communicate what you feel and want to say (while people pat you on the head and tell you how cute you are!). This leads to a great deal of pent-up frustration, which manifests in temper tantrums, acting out, and the like. You have shown her that quiet time can help her calm down during episodes where she wants to express herself/feelings to you, but simply doesn't know how. Time-out is probably a great relief to her, poor baby! But look out. In a year or two you won't be able to shut her up. The Terrific Threes are like a pressure valve being released. She will string together so many sentences/questions YOU will need a regular time out!

my son just turned two this march and he's been the same way with timeout, enjoying it lol.  I was put off by it at first because I thought it was supposed to be a punishment, I kept using the technique any way though.  Thanks to this forum my perspective has changed, it isn't really a punishment, it is more like time to calm down, like everyone said.  that is really much healthier than punishment anyway.  The only other punishment I ever used was a hand slap when he played with the stove, timeout was not speaking to him at all at that point.  I woke up in the middle of the night and the stove had been on for hours and the house was filling with gas.  He must've ran out there and turned it on right before bed. So I thought I needed the hand slap to get throught to him.