My baby is 10 months old & I breastfeed. She also eats food & gets the occasional bottle of formula when I’m not around…but at this point she will no longer take bottles from me.
Lately she has been biting like crazy! She laughs when I cry out. She laughs if I give her a slap or bite her back!..ok I am realizing that sounds scary but I do it lightly & was instructed to do that by a le leche lady!
Right now I am in the middle of moving so we are between pediatricians and the former office acted like I was moving to personally spite them so no way can I call their advice line over this! The new pediatrician I haven’t met & the hurricane pushed our appointment back! So I would appreciate any advice since le leche didn’t really help!
Also since I am in the middle of moving we have no crib & are all in one room with our dog so there is no place for me to really put her to “cry it out” & it’s really hard not giving her what she wants when she’s right next to me!
She thinks it’s hilarious. She mimics shaking her finger " no no no"
I was told that with the first bite, to take the baby off, say no sternly, lay her on the floor and turn your back to her for a minute. Then pick her up and try again. If she bites you… Keep up the routine increasing the amount of time she has to lay there and cry. Also, the trick is you can not react when she bites you. Yeah… I know… That is rediculously difficult with their little razor teeth. But the first time my son did this to me, I tried it and it worked for us. He did it once or twice on accident after that, but he learned pretty quickly that it was wrong. And he loves his milk too much to be told no more milky. Ha. Good luck! I guess if she is going to continue being naughty, it could be a sign that she’s ready to wean?
I tried a similar thing where I turned away and let her cry & realize she did something bad. She stopped for awhile & started again!
The le leche lady said that the “oww” reaction is funny to babies so I am trying to just say a stern “no” instead. She also said it isn’t a sign of wanting to wean but I think maybe we have to if this continues!
I don’t know if weaning while moving is good or bad- new house, no more co-sleeping, no more boob seams like a lot to lay on a person all at once! Or maybe the new house & room will be free of all the cues she associates with breastfeeding?
Yes, I agree- give a stern NO.
What I do is take them off the breast and say NO or No Biting! Since your little one is older and may be doing this to “play around” near the end of a nursing session, you could choose to end the nursing session at that point. (at that age, I would because they know better from past experience- I mean if it were the first time that would be different, but this issue tends to come up every so often at random times for us) Or you could resume the session once you tell them no. Another option that has worked in the past that I’ve tried and read about is to gently push their face closer to you- it is not life threatening in any way, but it makes it harder for them to breathe/suck so they will open their mouth/stop biting. Then you say “No, No Biting” again. and have them re-latch and continue.
Regarding weaning in your situation- I could see it going both ways like you mentioned. Maybe you’ll just have to play it by ear and see what makes sense as it gets closer? Maybe with all the changes you will want to keep some normalcy in the nighttime routine too mom!
The advice came from whoever was on the other end of the phone from the LLL in [name]Park[/name] Slope, [name]Brooklyn[/name]. I would also like to change my word choice from bite to nibble & from slap to pat!
My brother did that with my mom a few times, he thought it was funny when she said ow too. She did the whole stern no thing, and then would end the feeding session right away.
He learned pretty quickly from that.
What worked for me was unlatching and giving a stern ‘no bites’ with no hint of silliness in my face, then relatch and moved on. [name]Don[/name]'t make a huge deal out of it, and don’t shame the baby over it. It happens, try to stay calm and let the baby know that you do not like it and move on.
I don’t think a 10 month old child has anything near the cognitive capacity to understand the nip/pat response. It takes a great deal of abstract reasoning to comprehend that “as this hurts me, so must it hurt mom.” She might well become confused and associate the unpleasant situation (the nip/pat) with breastfeeding itself. She does probably think your ‘ouch!’ is a marvelous game, as 10 months is when the cause-and-effect explorations start to really go haywire and loves the notion that she can make something happen.
I think the suggestions above were great-- unlatching with a stern no. Stopping feeding is not a cause-and-effect she would want to make happen.
I do think that leaving her alone to cry will probably undermine your aims rather than strengthen them. Her memory is so short at this point she will likely completely disassociate the bite from the being-alone-and-crying-for-several minutes. It needs to be coupled together in the extreme short-term, like the unlatch & no response.
When they were about 10 months my boys started biting too. They bit me so hard I cried a few times and that scared them a bit I think. I also used the stern NO and took them away from the breast for a minute or two. They got over it after a week or two (a very painful week or two both physically and emotionally where I thought I was going to have to give up breastfeeding before they were ready to stop because it just hurt too much). I stuck with it a few more days as I was figuring out how we would change out nightly routine and all of a sudden they stopped biting. That was probably 6 months ago and only one of them has bit since and it was only one time- he was really tired and I think he forgot he was nursing. Good luck!
[name]Blade[/name], you know so much & I am so glad you saw my post!
Zaelia I am so glad to hear that it seems to be a common phase that we can get past!
[name]Leonie[/name] is still biting me! I’ve realized it’s usually at night when she’s really tired & this means she responds really badly when I unlatch her! I have been toughing it out, but it’s sooo unpleasant! Wevwill finally be in our own place in a few weeks and I am considering starting the weaning process (whatever that may be!) at that point if this continues!