I am a stepmom to an almost 2 yr old and I work in the field of early childhood education.
I saw this post and thought I would offer my little bit of insight if you ladies didn't mind.
Have you tried telling them what they can do?
For example when your child is hitting you instead of saying "no hitting" you could say...."you can clap your hands or give me a high five" in a really animated excited voice. And if they try to hit again in a really boring monotone voice say "hands are not for hitting" and again in your excited/happy voice: but you can give me a high five! And then praise them for the high five or clap or w.e they've done.
If they continue to hit putting them down and moving away from them saying "ouch!that hurts when you hit me!i don't like it" in a firm voice shows them that when they do things like that they get no attention at all for it.
A lot of the getting into "trouble" kids at the toddler age get into is because they are exploring their environment. When we as parents respond with "no!dont do xyz" very high pitched/excited sounding etc and provide attention for what they've done all they get from the interaction is that you provided them with attention and sounded animated!
If instead you respond super boring to the "don't hit that hurts" and excitedly "you can give me a high five" they remember you being excited about the high five part. (does that make sense?)
Providing lots of praise for things they do that are appropriate behaviors are also really good
Visuals are also an awesome tool to use with toddlers. Toddlers respond really well to visual cues rather than verbal because they cannot necessarily understand the verbal but pictures can be quite clear. To make pics you can use anything from an actual photograph of things to clip art on the computer or even in a pinch a quick drawing by yourself!
Things you can use pics for can be "no hitting" and a picture of an X through someone hitting and a great thing to pair with that is a picture of what is appropriate: two people high giving with big smiles......it is great to have a pic paired with the words written on them to help with that development of language and reading skills.....for example "no hitting" and for the positive side "everyone is happy when I use my hands nicely".
Sorry for the long post. Hopefully some of what I said may be helpful.