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Family Forum / Pregnancy / Breastfeeding / June 2005We have a biting PROBLEM
I never thought much about babies biting the nipple when nursing my son. He used his teeth sometimes and gave me a nip here and there, but never anything terribly painful. I nursed him for 19 mos and this was never a problem. DD is 12 mos 1 week old and has 6 teeth. She's been biting off and on for a while, but not enough to bother me, but now she's REALLY biting me. Today, she acutally bit through the skin to where I have two small bite marks that bled, and it is VERY painful! I thought this was a one time thing, but she just bit me again! I'm not sure what to do about this; I can remove her or yell "Ouch" and she cries, but she still does it again later. I can handle some biting, but my nipples are going to be torn up if she continues to chomp down like this. She crawls all over me when nursing, nurses upside down, sideways, here, there and everywhere, and this seems to contribute to the problem. Any suggestions are appreciated. I guess I may just have to tolerate it, seeing that my minimum breastfeeding goal is 18 mos, unless she gives it up before then (which I doubt). Thanks! Annie mom to Zach (3), b. 6.19.02 and Grace (1), b. 6.19.04 spanannie writes: > DD is 12 mos 1 week old and has 6 teeth. She's been biting off and on > for a while, but not enough to bother me, but now she's REALLY biting [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > when nursing, nurses upside down, sideways, here, there and everywhere, > and this seems to contribute to the problem. Our biting problem was shortlived, which may well have been luck - but what I did in addition to what you're doing is to take DS off, put him down, *and leave the room for a couple of minutes* when he bit. Then I'd come back and comfort him, but not nurse for another half hour or so. Acrobatics: you sound more tolerant than me. I didn't mind if it was comfortable for me, but if DS was making nursing uncomfortable for me, let alone hurting, I'd stop it. I'd just say "gently, gently" and "no acrobatics, it's hurting Mummy" and "if you can't stay still to nurse, I'll have to take you off for now" and then do it. If he was actually hungry, he'd stay still; I don't think there was a serious risk that this would cause him to give up bfing. He's 20 months tomorrow and still going strong. Sidheag DS Colin Oct 27 2003 I'm glad to hear your biting problem was short lived. I hope that is the case for us, but she's been biting for awhile now....it's just getting more painful. I am afraid to stop her from doing her nursing gymnastics, since she only feeds that way, except for the feed before bedtime. I'm afraid she'd give up nursing if I didn't allow the acrobatics. > spanannie writes: > [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > Sidheag > DS Colin Oct 27 2003 spanannie writes: > I am afraid to stop her from doing her nursing gymnastics, since she > only feeds that way, except for the feed before bedtime. I'm afraid > she'd give up nursing if I didn't allow the acrobatics. Hmm. I doubt that, personally, but you know her best. I know you don't want to stop nursing yet, but would you really feel bad about it if she was just nursing at bedtime, which seems like the worst that would happen? I think quite a lot of children are down to that by her age, and yet continue to nurse at bedtime for a long time, don't they? (But bear in mind that I'm - as of today :-) - nursing a 20 month old and am beginning to get to the point where just one or two feeds a day is beginning to sound like bliss. I may be having difficulty relating to your concerns about dropping to one feed a day, and might have felt quite differently eight months ago :-) Trouble is, if you don't take her off when she does her acrobatics, I don't see how on earth you're going to stop her doing it. From all I've read here, just about the only way to stop annoying nursing habits at that age is to make clear, by stopping nursing when they happen, that they aren't acceptable. Maybe someone else will have some ideas. Sidheag DS Colin Oct 27 2003 > I'm glad to hear your biting problem was short lived. I hope that is > the case for us, but she's been biting for awhile now....it's just > getting more painful. I had a long and fairly terrible biting phase with Hunter. Just like Sidheag, the biting stopped relatively quickly after I decided to leave the room rather then just put him down. You might also try offering her more solid snacks. I also nursed with a pinky beside his mouth so I could get it in there ASAP if he looked like he was going to bite. I also learned that there was a serious nursing session and there was fiddly nursing sessions. When he was serious there was no biting. When he was fiddly - he bit. He might have been bored. He learned to crawl at about the same time he stopped biting (10.5mos) so I think he was more entertained. He also started eating solids then.  SignatureNikki > Any suggestions are appreciated. I guess I may just have to tolerate it, > seeing that my minimum breastfeeding goal is 18 mos, unless she gives it > up before then (which I doubt). The best suggestion I've seen around here is to actually push baby's face into your breast right when the biting happens. It seems counterintuitive, but they have to release to breath. It's uncomfortable, which discourages the biting, but not harmful. One of my friends was having a terrible time with her baby biting at the breast...her son thought it was really funny when she would yelp in pain, so that didn't work to correct the problem. She told me that the face smushing thing worked in a couple of tries. HTH, Jodi |
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