14 month old and biting

[violeteyes]

my dd has always been a very keen nursling, would never take ebm etc. exclusive breast fed to 6 months, now loves her meals and drinks loads of water and milk from cups.

i had recently gently tried to cut down number of feeds a day-more often 4-5 than the 2-3 i was expecting at this age, but decided that she seemed unhappy with this so would go with the flow and carry on as we were, which was a general routine time for 3 'main' feeds, but would still feed her if she asked or was unhappy at other times.

she generally doesn't feed at night, unless ill, as usually sleeping 7ish to 6ish, so that not an issue.

she is teething a lot in the last few weeks, has 4 front teeth, 4 molars and now getting her canines. rarely off meals, some dribble, some disturbed nights. she will not chew on anything- never has. hates teething gel. only calpol and cuddle works. i would also expect to be feeding her more, i am sure i did when teething others.

the problem is she bites-a lot, and repeatedly. not all feeds, but when she begins on a given feed it will continue, and so i have to give up on the feed. she then doesn't seem bothered.
have therefore more or less given up on bedtime feed, as this is the worst, and she is probably having this only once in blue moon when makes it clear she wants it-am not even offering this as i was so dreading it.

this seems to be beginning at after lunch feed too-she has short suck, then begins biting and grinning at me. no suggestion of wanting feed if i stop and cover up.

seems like we will very abruptly go from 4-5 feeds some days to 1-2, maybe even just one in the morning-so far no problems with this.

i am 9 weeks pregnant, so don't know whether the issue is teeth, pregnancy, her age etc but i do feel she is a bit young to be self weaning. my ds, now 3, self-weaned at 18 months when i was 5 months pregnant, and due to dd usually insatiable apetite i expected her to do same or even to go on to tandem feed.

sorry for essay, feeling really down and lost about this at the moment and hoping for some mumsnet wisdom!

[violeteyes]

also sorry for poor english in that post, hope it makes sense

[Alibabaandthe40nappies]

I am having this problem with DS, he is 13 months.

I just stop the feed when he does it, tell him no firmly. He was going through a phase end of last week but he's stopped it now - remains to be seen for how long.

We are only feeding morning, bedtime and then during the night - occasionally during the day but not often at all.

No real help there, but at least you know you aren't alone!!

[gemmamc]

Sorry you are feeling down. My ds bit me a lot when he was teething at one point, around 14-15 months. I had a bit of a major crisis, and I didn't feed him on one occasion for almost a day and a half (I refused to feed him every time he started because he was immediately biting me and even drew blood a couple of times) which was very worrying as at that point he was not having a lot of solids nor much water. However, he didn't self wean at that point as I thought he might, he just resumed as normal after a while. I also developed a technique for pulling him off BEFORE he would bite, and was nervously using it for a few weeks after that incident. Plus I was giving him other things to bite, and encouraging him to do that. I also found some other useful advice through LLL. But just as it all happened suddenly, the problem also went away suddenly and he never did it again. i was glad I didn't stop then. Hope this helps. Sorry if I wrote this quickly...have to get off computer...

[gemmamc]

I also remembered that the LLL advisor I spoke to on the phone thought ds was biting out of frustration, perhaps because he was not getting enough milk (he was biting at the end of the feed, rather than the beginning - not sure what is happening in your case). I stimulated production by expressing more milk, and that probably helped solve the problem. In substance, there can be various reasons for biting, so it's worth investigating further and perhaps speaking to a bf expert if it's causing a lot of trouble.

[violeteyes]

thank you, so nice to hear not alone, and that not neccessarily about to self wean. i steeled myself to offer more today, and had total of 3 lovely feeds with no teeth. think will persevere, may try some expressing if continues to decline.

next problem, the pinching! i think she is perhaps trying to stimulate more milk, perhaps supply bit low due to the pregnancy