2yr old & hitting

Hello there, I thought I had this parenting thing under control for now but at this point idk what else to do..

My son loves to hit like most toddlers. He will hit when he’s excited or when he’s upset. Ever since I noticed hitting I would:

- redirect

- tell him be gentle

- show him how we use our hands

- tell him it’s not nice

So far he doesn’t really hit any other toddlers he has when he was like 1-18mos out of excitement when he would see a friend. But I’d consistently tell him to give hugs and it only happened twice so I figured let me continue to do that.

I am currently pregnant (34 weeks) and it has seemed like the further I get along in my pregnancy he more clingy he is getting. And the last 3 nights he’ll wake up and want to lay on my face to fall back asleep or lay on top of me which is very uncomfortable due to my big belly. So I try to be nice, console him and figure out a different way for him to lay down with me so he can go back to sleep. Unfortunately that makes him super upset and 1, he starts screaming as if he’s being tortured & 2, he’ll scratch and hit. At this point I’ve learned to just hold his hands and tell him it’s okay so he can stop crying and to not hit, but at that point he’s tantruming. So it’s making him more angry.

But my patience is already thinning day by day the closer I get to my due date and we really don’t want to pop him even tho we have before in certain circumstances. He hit me in my lip last night and I popped him for it and said it’s not nice and this morning he woke up and hit my lip again and because my lips were dry it busted my lip. I told him ouch that hurt mommy and popped him again 🤦🏽‍♀️ and when he saw me bleeding and cleaning my lip he did stop his crying and said “sorry mommy”. So I’m like you know it’s not nice what more can I do to make it stick that you don’t hit. Or teach him how to listen better?

I started teaching him emotions and he does pretty good when I teach him how to tell me or my husband how to tell us how he’s feeling but maybe it’s still too early for him to remember that information when he gets upset?

What are some good tips to handle this?