Biting

[Wildflower2022]

Hello,

my 9 month old won’t stop biting.
hes been doing since a very young age (well, gumming before he had teeth).
i’ve tried ignoring it, saying no calmly, detaching his mouth when I think he is going to bite/when he does bite me but nothing seems to work. I occasionally will say no strongly as it hurts now he has quite a few teeth.

he only bites me, and interestingly he doesn’t do it when breastfeeding at all. I’m covered in bruises and fed up of being in high alert for potential pain/bites! Help, what else can I do? Is this normal? I don’t understand where this has come from. I’m worried he’s going to start biting other children or caregivers at nursery.

I would speak to your health visitor just to see what their thoughts are. They might ask you about milestones etc or they may not think much of it. For babies it can be the desire to mouth something, teething, or just trying to see your reaction to their action.

My middle child started biting at around 1.5 and he's 8 now and has never stopped. He mostly bites himself, but sometimes his siblings. He did also bite at nursery for a time. It's quite typical for babies and toddlers to bite, but it's developmentally expected to stop unless there's SEN (which my son has).

Thank you, I will do that. He is due his next check soon I believe.

His dad has SEN so my concern is that this is down to SEN rather than just NT baby behaviour. Of course, too early to tell but I will speak to healthcare professionals about it.

how do you deal with the biting?