Did anybody have aggression towards babies as a kid?

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Hi Guys. I've got some great advice from you guys in the past, and we've run out of things to try, so I wanted to see if anybody here has any experience with this. My son is 3, moderate/severe autism. Generally a happy, bubbly little guy. He's got one hangup though that is preventing him from advancing through school, and is threatening to have a major impact on his life. He constantly attacks babies and any children younger than him. The moment he sees one, he relentlessly tries to attack them, hitting, kicking and pushing. He knows he shouldn't do it, he feels bad when he does it, but he just can't help himself.

Did any of you have any similar struggles? Was there anything you remember about babies in particular that might have set this off? Do you have any advice on causes or solutions? I know this isn't a normal post for this forum, so I apologize if this should be solely in the parenting forum. I've tried a bunch of parenting forums and haven't had much help. I am really grateful for anything you folks can provide. Thanks!

Um no, I've always loved babies.

Are the babies crying or anything?

No. It potentially could have started from an early dislike for crying babies, but nowadays if we're walking down the road and he sees a stroller 50 feet away, he will try to break free and sprint to the stroller to see if there is a baby inside that he can hit.

When I was that age and severe I would act that way towards people's pets that got too close to me. I would not go after them though, they had to invade my space. Slightly similar I suppose. Was just something I grew out of.

Sounds like a unique problem your son has, the closest story I heard is an autistic child who was aggressive towards his baby brother because he was jealous his brother was getting more attention than him. It very well could be because he dislikes crying babies and associates babies with crying. One thing I'm going to ask is does he end up making the babies cry?

Typically not, he doesn't really know how to hit or anything. Just kind of swipes at them or pushes a little bit.

Not in general. I was aggressive towards my baby brother though. I put a pillow over him to muffle out his crying and I never did that again when my mother yelled at me about it and when he was one, I was mean to him so I literally pushed him around and always teased him and sat on him and pushed him down the stairs several times and would lock him in the bathroom with the light off. I guess what pissed me off was he would touch my stuff, knock down my block fort, he scribbled in my Little Mermaid book while I was in school. My mom had to give us joint attention because I was jealous of him when I was three because she gave all her attention to him and she didn't leave me alone with him after the pillow incident because she thought I was trying to kill him. I wonder how a three year old would know that putting a pillow over someone will kill them? He was crying when I did it so I can assume I didn't like his crying so I was trying to silence it so I wouldn't have to listen to it.

I don''t know really how to help.

Is he aggressive towards anything else in his life?

maybe it's his way of trying to communicate and he's getting it wrong by coming across as aggressive. Just a thought.

get him a doll and teach him to be kind to it by pretending it's a real baby.

I'm not an expert in babies or children and I do try and avoid then at all costs.

Haha, we actually had that same idea! He knocks his doll around too.

No, he's not aggressive towards anything else, unless maybe a toy gets taken, but that is pretty normal toddler behavior. For the most part, he is an extremely joyful little guy. He doesn't self-injure or ever get aggressive with kids older than him, just the babies.

Are you sure he is actually being aggressive to the babies? Maybe he actually likes them and just doesn't know how to be gentle.

^^That was exactly my line of thought.