What age for time outs?

[ladygrey]

When did you start using time outs for discipline?

I was chatting with my cousin and his wife at a family party yesterday, and they mentioned that they started at 11 months with their daughter. Is it just me or does that seem super young? Can an 11 month old actually understand that they are being punished for misbehaving?

[dulcemariamar]

I dont remember when we started. Maybe around her first birthday. We started with doing TOs with her on my lap facing away from me. Around 18 months we started putting her in a TO spot.

[Deleted]

No, an 11 month has no idea wtf you're doing with a time-out. We're still using redirection with DD (12 months).

If you're interested in discipline and child development, "Positive Discipline 0-3" is a great book. Focuses very much on what a child is actually capable of understanding and how to work with that. Some people use what they know, even if it's really not going to work.

[laurie12820]

We used redirection or removal up until DD turned 2. Once she turned 2 we started with TO. Then again, DD was a pretty easy going toddler.

[Deleted]

We use time out like once a year. But I remember when she was about 18 months old, she went through a biting phase and that was the first time DH put her in time out. She never bit anyone again after that.

[BrazilianBruiser]

I'm on the same boat as @tambcat.

[hermione]

Aug 18, 2014 9:57:08 GMT -5 @tambcat said:

I still can't figure out how to  do time-outs with my 2 year old.

I wonder about this too. I'm pretty sure my kid would just stand up and walk away from the time out chair. She's 16 months and I thought we'd start using it at 18 months but I am wondering if that's too early for her to get it.

[whitepicketfence]

I don't really remember. It was most likely sometime between 2 and 2.5 with the older girls.

[tigress]

Between 18 months and 2 years for both of them.

[CrazyLucky]

We started with timeouts at 18 months. We don't use them often, usually for hitting or throwing toys. They get one minute of timeout for each year of age, and they have to apologize for whatever they did.

[ssmjlm]

I can say that we tried this last week at 15m and it was a big fat fail. We ended up just having to sit with her and repeat "we don't play with the dog's food and we don't bother her when she's eating."

[t]

We started probably around 18 months and she didn't get it until recently around 22 months. When we first started, we would put her in the pnp in another room for one minute. Now she will sit on the step for about 90 seconds before we get her. I'm pretty surprised she will sit on her own at this point, but I'm going with it. She says "good girl" when she's done lol.

[Deleted]

LOL. No. I started at like 1.5. I used a lot of redirection up until that point. Hell, I still use a lot of redirection on my 3 year old. She usually gets naughty when it's time to change gears and it still works well for us.

I actually use time out as a redirection tool more than anything still. I just sit her wherever and tell her she has 3 minutes. We talk about it and move on. I don't make her sit still there. She does what she does. Now she'll say, "I need a time out" and go sit by herself for a bit when she's stressed..so it has worked well.

If she whiny, I'll set her in the TO spot and tell her she can get up when she's all done whining. Sometimes it's a minute, sometimes it's 10. She gets whiny when she feels out of control so putting her in charge of being done has really helped.

If I need all out discipline (backtalk, hitting, not listening) I take stuff away. Works great.

[arch01]

We started at about 16 months. Redirection was a joke with DS. The thing we wanted him to not do just became a magnet for the next 6 hours.

[suburbanzookeeper]

DS has started recently putting himself in time out if he gets in trouble, he comes out of it when he's calmed himself down (however long that takes, could be a minute, could be five). I'm assuming he's picked that up from his older sister.

[Deleted]

DC does timeout with DD. I think its been really successful there.

At home - I've never done it. I honestly didn't think she'd "get it" until I heard DC does it. We might have to start because she's now decided that hitting is fun. Although I have no idea how to do it. We still do redirection.

Funny story: My niece would go in timeout, and her parents would set the kitchen egg timer. About 30 seconds in, she would go "beeeeep. beeeeep." to try to trick her parents that her timeout was all done.

[kangaroo11]

I've done it twice in the last month- sorta. I sit her down on the couch or chair away from whatever bad thing she was doing and calmly talk about what she was doing that upset me. I know she didn't get it, but it helped her (and me) calm down quickly and them I let her go play again.

[bunch]

I used them in limited circumstances right at a year with dd1. It worked. No tears and I didn't hold her there or anything. I've started using them on 14 mo old dd2 for biting and they are very effective. I know it wouldn't work for all kids, but they work just fine for mine very early.

[dulcemariamar]

And I think there are so many different ways to do a TO that I guess it depends on what you consider a TO. When babies and toddlers start to hit and bite, people say to set your baby down and in a way some people might view that as a TO because you are separating yourself from the kid. So maybethat is what the OP's friend is doing.


I really didnt think that a traditional TO would work on my LO because she is so active. I couldnt imgaine her staying in one spot and I didnt want to make it into a battle of wills. The first two times she didnt get it, but she caught on pretty quickly and now I dont have to stay right next to her for her to stay there.

We just do it for when she hits. Afterwards she shows us how to use gentle hands. We dont ask her but she does it anyway.

[GotWine]

We started doing timeout with DD when she was fairly young. When she would bite us when she was mad, the other parent would take her away and set her in a chair. It was more of a way to remove her from the situation and get her in a different frame of mind. I was babysitting another little boy at the time and they would bite each other when when they would get frustrated, it was my way of separating them and distracting them. Now that's she's 2 timeouts don't really work. She puts herself in timeout in order to avoid doing something she doesn't want to do. I'm at a complete loss at how to discipline her now.

[mslhb]

We probably started closer to age 3. I couldn't imagine using TO's before age 2. We have always followed the 1 minute for each year of age rule of thumb.

[speckledfrog]

We haven't started yet.

[shellbear09]

That is crazy. I'm no where near trying with my 15 month old. And she's super smart