Baby biting

[helloitsme]

hello. my baby is teething. she is 8 months old. She feeds, and then after a bit she bites, sometimes really quite hard. What did you guys do about this? I am scared to put my nipple in her mouth, but she needs the milk! She doesn't always bite, usually after she has taken the edge off her hunger, but she still needs milk. Advice please!

Be extra aware whilst feeding her and as soon as you feel her suck change and her biting down pull her in to the breast very close so as to cover her nose with your breast so she has to open her mouth to breath and so lets go, then say firmly 'no biting', cuddle then put her back on the breast straight away. Do not pull her off the breast as she bites or you will damage the nipple.

Pinch her nose when she bites. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough so she has to let go to breathe. She's experimenting with her new teeth at the moment, but I've always found that the biting stage stops once they're used to their teeth, although unfortunatly may reoccur when subsequent teeth come through.

thanks sumum and moajab for your advice. i tried the 'no biting' and then putting her back on thing last night, but as soon as I put her back on she bit again. this happened three times and so i stopped the feed. usually when she bites, she comes off the breast anyway, so the pulling her in thing didn't really work. but i don't like my method either, as I am worried about her going hungry! i don't like stopping the feed when I think she still wants more. I will try the nose thing today and see how it goes. any other suggestions welcome!

I was just about to start a thread when I saw this one, ds is nearly 9 months and for the past two weeks has been biting quite a bit, the worst was a plane journey where he just bit me the whole time. Yesterday he drew blood .

I will try the nost thing but as hello says it tends to be when he's coming off that he bites, he sort of bites and pulls back at the same time iyswim. I've started to feel really nervous about feeding him and my nipples feel really tender. I'm back to work next week so I suppose bf might tail off anyway but after deciding at 6 months that I was going to stop bf for getting back to work I had started to change my mind and was planning to continue as long as we both wanted to, now I'm not sure that I will want to if I get bitten much more .

well ladies i do think you are right and if baby bites several times then you should stop that feed and maybe offer again a little later.

when my dd was about that age she went through a bad biting stage and i eventually discovered the reason was that she was on the cuspe of a new developmental stage. she was basically frustrated, she was crying so i was offering the breast and she didn't really want to feed so she sucked a little from habit then bit me. I did not realise her frustration and continued to offer the breast when she fussed, sometimes she fed fine, others she bit. this went on for a couple of weeks then suddenly she began to crawl and was sweetness and light again and the crying/fussiness and biting stopped. she went on to feed till she was three and a half years old.

It did work pulling her in close to stop sore nipples but the real reason was her frustration

hope you ladies find a solution that works soon.