BFing nuisances and bad manners on the boob - lighthearted thread

[PacificDogwood]

DS4 is now 6 months old.
For 6 months I have BF him (and will continue to do so) inspite of:

• him kicking and clawing me ALL the time when feeding
• him pulling his head back so far whilst pushing against my breast with his upper hand that he regularly pulls the nipple out, ouch!
• he pinches a bit of my bingo wing upper arm or muffin top waist with his lower hand really really hard
• he makes a very loud "hmmmmhmmmmmhmmmmm" noise, not 'yumyum' more a growl, which makes discreete BFing in public impossible due to decible levels
• he always cries when he comes off the breast; whether he comes off himself or I take him off for nibbling, whether he has fed 3 minutes or hours. Half a dozen sucks on his dummy and he'll spit it out and is happy
• he bites... well has done once. I think my reaction has warned him off big time
• he turns his head at every interesting noise (3 older brothers so lots of loud interesting noises) without letting go of me first; breast tissue is really amazingly stretchable

As he is No4 I am BFing I am quite staggered how many bad BFing habits he combines in his little person. The others all did some of the above, or had little phases of doing one of the other, but not all and all the time and from the start and for so long, gah!!

So, please add your BFing niggles and pratfalls and make me feel better about the love/hate relationship my son seems to have with my boobs !

Ow! Dita! Pliers!!

DD is 9 months and I recognise lots of this. She also grabs and twists the other nipple, pinches me, turns round to look at things while staying latched and definitely favours the right boob - for ages, the only way I could get her to settle at bedtime was to feed her from Righty. If I tried the left side, she'd be up within 20 minutes for a feed from my right boob before she'd settle

She also grabs my boob with both hands and manoeuvers it to latch herself on when we're in bed feeding, strokes me arms and chest while feeding and, more annoyingly, reaches back with her arm and whacks the keyboard if I dare to try and MN while we feed! :)

We have a feeding buddy if she gets too rough too. Poor bunny takes the battering and then they can both go to bed together all warm and cuddly.

It's nice to have some sympathy - DH found it hilarious If nothing else, she has a great career in torture ahead of her

Dita ouch!!!! You are the winner!

OwOwOw Yes, you win...

To think I started this thread because I don't much like BFing needed to know I was not alone with a baby that was NOT contentedly lying in the crook of my arm, wow, what a response, thank you all for sharing.

"Ready, steady, bee-hee" made me LOL, literally !

And thank you for reminding me that there are beautiful things about BFing ie the milky smiles and adoring looks, walkingonsunshine; easy to forget when I am being beaten up by TinyTyrant !

Also, I am so impressed how many toddlers are still being BF! I have no ambitions in that department but equally never thought I'd get to a year with DS3, so who knows when we will stop this time....

My DD likes to spit the last mouthful of milk from her feed back at me , not quite sure what thats all about. She tickles me with her under arm or pings my bra straps, and in the last few days she's figured out that if she smacks my boob hard enough she can make a clapping sound, so thats her new favourite trick.

I have a couple of nursing necklaces and they work well for keeping her entertained during feeds when we're out and about. If I forget them she tends to get distracted and come off to smile at anyone she can see (exposing my nipple to the world at the same time!)

I wear a short plain gold necklace. Both of mine LOs used to twiddle that while feeding. The eldest is now 9, but still twiddles my necklace when she's tired - so sweet!

DD was fine at feeding, but DS was a grunter, biter and puker.

Am still at the stage where I find the stroking and hitting patting quite sweet. But.....
my 6mo likes to remind me that he is peckish by latching on to any bit of naked flesh (e.g. arm, cheeck, neck, nose etc....) - funny, but sometimes it has a slightly alarming animal like ferocity to it .

He has, for some time also been highly distractale which means that, unless I am happy to sit with my nipples on full display until HRH DS decides he is ready to finish, feeding in public is pretty much out the window now (such a shame as it was sooo conveinient).

DS was very good at puking all over me mid feed. Last week when I didn't respond to his hunger quickly enough he tried to help himself to someone else whilst she fed her DD at a baby group

P.S. this is my first ever MN post though I have giggled & cried over many of the chats on here over the last few months.

Well you made me laugh with your first ever post Slugs. Welcome out of lurker-dom :)

DS (17mo) is a complete pest sometimes when BFing - the whole lot: scratching, nipping etc.

His favourite one recently though is to stick his finger REALLY HARD into my belly button! It's horrible!!!

BUT......

Earlier this week he topped his usual annoying habits - I was lying on the bed giving him his bedtime feed and I was just in my Pjs. He stuck his hand down my PJ bottoms and yanked on my pubic hair!!! OW!!!!!! I screamed.....
He laughed.....

Really hoping he doesn't do that one again!

Loving all these, I recognise a lot of the bad behaviours :). I had totally forgotten that my upper arms were black and blue where DD used to pinch them as she fed, that one was solved by giving her a cuddly duckling slipper to hold in each hand so she could wave those about instead. She was a biter too, culminating in a deep bite which drew lots and lots of blood, I had a tooth-shaped cut in my nipple that took days and days to heal.
DS's (5 months) current funniest behaviour is to poke his tongue out, lick the tip of my nipple, and then frown slightly and look thoughtful. I think he may be heading for a career in the wine tasting business .

Some of theses posts have made me :) as I remember feeding my three DCs.

DS1 was a wee horror and bit me, as well as making loud slurping noises while I tried to discreetly feed him at the back of our church

DD was a dream - used to feed for precisely 20 minutes then drop off to sleep. I completed my MSc dissertation after she was born and couldn't have done so if she had not been so predicatble :)

DS2 was another wee horror and his suction powers used to make my eyes water. He stopped BF at 2 yrs and is three and a half now. He often still embarasses me by plunging his paws down my cleavage at inopportune moments, announcing "mmm..nice boobies". Mind you at my age, he is the only male likely to have this opinion, so I should cherish it while it lasts

He he, just about all of the above.

Plus bicycling her legs while feeding in bed, thus managing to kick both me and DH.

And she is 21 months so we get "bubboo Mummy" every time I am getting dressed in the morning, with her opening her mouth and trying to stand up tall like a little bird. Actually, that's quite sweet.

The bicycling is a bit though, what does she think they are pedal powered??!

, OhNoNotTheHoneyBabies, that is hilarious! Well, maybe not for you...

And welcome, SlugsandSnails, thank you for your contribution .

I get "nice boobies" from dS2 who is 6 and was never BF (I exclusively expressed for him), so maybe he feels he missed out?

I am just loving all of these .

Not so much boob manners but if dd decides she is hungry and i din't get to her quick enough she will suck on her arm so hard that she gives herself quite an impressive lovebite.

Makes it look like i have been dragging her aroung buy her wrists. Long sleeves are a must.

dd's latest trick is to take a mouthful then gargle with it whilst leaving my breast on show.

I feed lying down at night and DS starts drinking then stops, stares into my eyes for a while and then carries on. This happens three or four times. He's 17 weeks. It's like he's just checking that it really is his mummy .

I get lots of smiles as well and lately a gorgeous breathy sort of "shhhhweeeeeee" sound round my nipple with a big smile whilst he looks right into my eyes. Think he's trying to say mummy. Well I think so anyway!

He's so distractable though that I have to feed in a dark room most of the time otherwise he is too interested in big sister to have a good feed.

ooooo lovely milky warmy cuddles in the middle of the night - knackering but gorgeous!

DS now 14 weeks just delatched, gave full on stare, then let rip with the lodest ever fart, and smiled, before relatching....nice!

Oh my

PacificDogwood your post was actually a relief to read (to some extent). My DS is 12 weeks - he's my first, and he has developed a bunch of habits which really distress me, and are impossible to stop:

-pulling my nipple as he looks backwards across the room (when the flow is too slow for him, I think)

-popping my nipple in and out of his mouth

-waving his arms around grabbing my clothes (best he can) as he feeds.

I do wonder if its got something to do with flow that is too fast, then too slow, or bad latch (have tried to improve this, but he does what he wants).

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Abby

Some of these very familiar.. Dd always steals my glasses and waves them around taunting me during the day. At night she tickles me with her hidden arm or drags her nails up and down the fabric of the rocking chair.
She will only feed in her room or in the car. To the extent that on our recent holiday I had to go and sit in a Furness of a car to feed her as the villa wasn't right!

Wow! I was beginning to worry about my 6 mo DD2 having lots of teeth but now I see I could have it A LOT worse!! Lol at lots of these posts, especially the nipple-twiddling ones!

notenoughsocks I can sympathise - DD2 gave me a bright red lovebite on my upper arm on Sunday - my own fault for letting her snack there I suppose

These stories are great and make me quite proud to still BF at six months... while simultaneously reinforcing my intention to stop before she's old enough for 'ready, steady, bee-bee'

DD gave me a lovebite on my chin once! Now that was embarrassing.

Still, DH now has a better respect for the strength of her latch and what my poor nipples have been going through!!