I have some advice on this one for when he's older. The following worked very well for our bio daughter, starting at around age 2. She's now 4 1/2.

First, we don't acknowledge tantrums. We make sure she's safe and can't hurt herself, but otherwise we don't give her an audience.

Second, with very young children, you have to meet them on their level. We get down on our knees so that we are eye-to-eye with her, make sure she is looking us in the face, then tell her in words she can understand what she should/shouldn't do. Two word phrases are good... NO HITTING! NO PINCHING! NO BITING! NO SCREAMING! If she doesn't comply, we put her in the naughty chair for a time-out. We use two minutes for each year of age.

Having said that...

Keep in mind that this child isn't even a year old yet, so to me, this isn't a "discipline" issue. He's not old enough to be able to control his impulses or fully understand right from wrong. He cannot fully comprehend that his actions have consequences. He doesn't yet possess the ability to predict the outcomes of his behaviors. Other than telling this young of a child "no, no" when he is doing something wrong, I don't know what else you CAN do.

You can't ground him. You can't put him on restriction from privileges. You can't take away his iPod or his car keys. I mean, he's not technically even a toddler yet. He's an infant. You can't punish an infant for bad behavior. As an infant, he's not even capable of bad behavior.

He's not verbal enough now to understand any kind of disciplinary action. Until he's older and verbal, you might try re-directing his attention when he has an episode like this. Pick him up, change his location, change his activity, just remove him from the situation. Take him outside and put his bare feet on the grass. Put him in the bathtub for a bath. Take him from his room into the kitchen to bang on some pots and pans. If he's hitting, biting, etc., you put him down in a safe place and walk away after telling him firmly, "NO BITING. NO HITTING." I would try re-directing... it can be anything, as long as he's doing something different in a different location. Removes his focus from whatever is pissing him off. His pediatrician can give you some pointers on how to deal with this and what kind of expectations are realistic for a child his age.

~ Anne ~

"Love, having no geography, knows no boundaries."
(Truman Capote)

He's just a baby ~ maybe it's too disruptive for him to be in the different houses with different routines for such a long period of time (a month). I think Anne gave good advice.

Mama Kat

When I was reading your post, I was ready to explain to you that we went through identical behavior with SD and tell you all about what therapist taught us. Then I read further and Anne had already done that. So, I second what Anne said.

that at the moment I have a VERY VERY rotten BS, who is at this very moment, being very upset b/c he cannot get into the kitchen. But he is only 13 months old. He hits, and when he does, I gently hold his hand down and say "No Hit Mama" HE bit a few times, but when I said "Ouch!!, NO, NO Son", he stopped doing that. He doesn't hit as much either. But just like Anne said, there is really not a whole you can do. As for throwing the fits, do exactly what anne says about a different location, distraction. I have come to just walk away from him or ignore him if I can't walk away and he doesn't keep it up for long. Babies just want attention or food, drink, something and they usually want it NOW. I am attempting to teach my BS pateince after my recent fiasco. Good Luck and just give lots of love!!

~THE EXERCISE THAT REALLY CHANGES YOUR LIFE IS WALKING DOWN THE AISLE~

my kids are quite a bit older now, but my son used to be a handful at this age as well. We gave him one warning, by saying...no hitting, no biting, etc. If he didn't stop, we picked him up and put him in his crib, or another room somewhere he couldn't hurt himself and walked away like it was no concern to us. (Of course we were watching from around the corner so we knew if he got into something he shouldn't be, we could get in there fast). Sometimes the tantrums would last 10 minutes. Eventually he realized that no one was standing there paying attention to him and he would stop and carry on with amusing himself again. It took doing this again and again, right up until he was about 3, but it worked. We very seldom had to deal with this after that. By then he knew if he was getting heated up over something, he would be told once and would be sent to his room until he stopped.

Good luck..its not an easy thing to deal with, especially in public.
Corie