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 !

I am at what some of these older babes get up to!!!

So far (6months in) we have had snotty boob, sick on boob, raspberries on boob, bra pinging, clawing at boob, a preference for right boob (can't believe it is always right boob, maybe to do with blood flow or something?? Pacific?) pulling off in public to look around, hair pulling....
Am currently trying (and failing) to stop bf but this thread has made me giggle. Thanks pacific

Great stories!!! So much stuff here seems familar. My DS is very good at letting out really loud long farts in the middle of feed, followed by a nipply grin...

abigailj, welcome . As this thread shows you, they can be little so-and-sos for no apparent reason. However if you are looking for advice you'd better start your own thread in the 'Breast feeding' topic. You'll get all the BFing gurus that way.

And what is it with boys and farting while feeding? Plus ca change.... or not as it were !

I have a nipple radio tuner as well, really hurts after a while! Have taken to covering up with muslins.

DS is good at farting during his feed also must be a boy thing......

Also I know when DS is hungry cause he latches on to my chin recently he latched onto my mum's chin and she was surprised how strong his latch was....she now understands the pain at the beginning

My charming DS used to bite me, then with a grin say 'Bitey!'.
He is now about 20 months (I know... it must stop) and has a name for each breast and will call for them. So glad I didn't teach him to say 'breast'.

Ahhh and I nearly forgot, there is the feeding until he has eaten so much he basically explodes and everything is covered in breastmilk (once it even came out of his nose) and then... have sicked up all the milk he wants to feed again.
BAHHHHHH

i am loving all these,and i actually thought i was the only one with a DC who does acrobats on me,DD is 5months,she does everything that has been mentioned but her speciality is kicking me on my c section wound,ouch,

she touches my face,and treats whatever boob she is on with love(which has made it difficult for me when DH wants to have his pund of boob)has bitne me a few times but i always scream so she doesn't do it often,like one of my boobs better than the other,

but the smiling through the boob,ADORABLE,i just do things to make her smile and i'm glad i didn't give up so easily,BF is and can be hard for some at first,

My one year old twins mob me wherever they can. Whenever I sit on the floor, they toddle over with very loud whoops of hunger/excitement (actually one pants and one sounds like a seal barking) and pull at my top until I give in. (The thought that one might have a feed without the other getting in on the act is unthinkable to both of course). Then I sit there half naked whilst they feed standing up (the boy) and on her stomach along the length of my leg (the girl) often holding hands or trying to poke each other's eyes out. A double nappy change nearly always ensues.

All this, combined with having got up every 2/3 hours through every night for 13 months, is the reason why I am more than encouraging them to give up. I will miss it though!

How could I have forgotten to mention? PacificDogwood I have a girl who likes to take care of both ends at once, leaving me to caaaarefully unlatch her and rush her over to be changed before the poo wave hits her feet and/or neck. It was ok in places like the park cos it's not like the grass minds the fertiliser but this week she did it at the embassy five minutes before our appointment?

She's only 16 weeks so I guess I have time to hide the toolbox, get a wax, etc.

Loving the memories these posts are bringing back for me!!

Just wanted to share these links, though. They may help the terminally battered Mum to remember why she's still breastfeeding her toddler, despite all the challenges .

So you may like to check out Dr Jack Newman or La Leche League.

Remember "This too shall pass". Before you know it, they won't want any more and then you'll have to relearn how to calm them, get them off to sleep, etc!!

This thread has cheered me up. DS2, 6 months, does many of the above, including pinching and smiling. Another favourite is to grab my hair/ponytail (I have very long hair) so that I am held in a kind of deadlock and can't move! He also always insists on uncovering me if i try and place a muslin over my boob or pull my t-shirt down to try and preserve some modesty!

Now we know what we might have done with our moms before lolz. Daughter still cries while nipple was inside her mouth and mumbles angrily like saying I am so bad I made her wait for it. Biting and pulling and laughing after doing it. Sometimes she would stand while feeding makes me feel like a cow. Sigh

DD (4m) is a reflux baby so frequently vomits milk and carries on slurping. Yukky habbit, as it pools in the bottom of my cheesey bra. Was getting through 4-5 bras a day till the meds kicked in!
She likes to bury her head into my (rather ample) boobage, then comes up gasping for air. Also does a lovely stretch and fart combo every few mins.
Such a ladylike little girl.

i was having one of those 'am so alone' days until i read this thread and it thoroughly cheered me up! when had finished laughing and wiped the tearsfrom my eyes i decided to become a member. my ds is 3 months and this morning i was bf as i chatted to a friend and he sneakily unlatched without my noticing....until i saw the spray of milk fly up through the air (leaving a trail up across his face and through his hair!!)
he has habit of filling his nappy as he fills his belly, loves to tug my muslin down ...but only when were in busy restaurants etc, lean his head back and look round whilst still latched on (i did try explaining to him that my nipples arent that stretchy!) and sometimes he leans back mid-suck to grin at me and dribble milk everywhere (generallly in my bra or down my top!!) he also gets very excited and i get loud hmmhmmhmmhmm noises when i go to unclip my bra - not great for discreet feeding!! :)

Only a lurker/occasional poster, mainly on other threads but wanted to ask something! The ladies that say that their DC's prefer one breast to the other, is the breast your DC's prefer the main hand/arm you use? Just wondering if left handed women have DC's that prefer the left breast and right handed - right breast?

Just a thought! Sorry if i'm being wierd!

DD chomps down on my nipple and then turns her head. Ye-ouch. I keep telling her off about it, but as she's only 7 months it's just not going in! Nipples aren't meant to stretch that far.
She twangs bra straps, pulls hair, puts her hand in my mouth, grabs my nose. Mostly she shakes my necklace around, which isn't so bad.

She does have an aversion to my right boob though. That's the one she bites the most, and will never feed too long from it. Very strange.

jellytots I've read that most babies prefer the lefthand side, something to do with being able to hear your heartbeat, not sure how true that is (DD used to prefer the left but has recently switched allegiance to the right - as a bleeding heart lefty liberal, I feel a bit dirty typing that ).

Most babies on here seem to be preferring the right boob. Maybe it's something to do with how you carry them normally. I'm right handed so would usually carry a baby in my right hand I suppose.

Welcome to UdderlyExhausted. Glad you've joined us :)

I stopped bf my ds NINE MONTHS ago and yet....

...my right nipple is still his comforter and his hand goes down my top at every opportunity. It is driving me MENTAL - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGHHHH!! It's not like he's gentle either. I am contemplating embracing the burqa.

So I'm sorry pacific, I'm not the bearer of glad tidings!! I do adore him though

Well, I am (very) R handed, prefer to carry my toddlers on my L hip to leave R hand free to do stuff and prefer to hold baby in crook of L arm - yet still DS4 and 3 both had a strong preference for R boob from about 4 months onwards.
I had considered the same as you, loveyoulots, but for us it is simply not true. It is of course a vicious circle: because he gets cross on the L breast and starts fussing and pulling (the latest is, he is reluctant to latch on properly and just sucks v tip of nipple, yelp!) I of course give him less time on the L, unlatch him and change over to R. I am sure that milk supply on my L must now be less than R, but this is NOT how we started and certainly holding him to the L breast is much more comfortable for me.

Just had lovely latch on-come off-latch on-look around (still latched)-come off-latch on etc etc feed in IKEA whilst 2.6 year old DS3 beat up innocent children in the play area . If you saw a wild-haired woman with baby attached to boob dragging her misbehaving toddler by the arm out of the play area, that was me ....

What a lovely thread!

Ah a lot of the bad nursing manners I moan about, I secretly love.

I miss the 4-6 months hand exploring, face slapping phase.

I loved the very annoying blowing raspberries and very realistic faux farting noise on my boobs / stomach and giggling (but that is soo last month now).

My son always flits between boobs taking a gulp from one and immediately to the other (so he can have a faster flow - why work harder han you need eh?)- which means no more public feeds as he really isn't discreet.

It's annoying that he has always favoured the left breast over the right leaving me somewhat lopsided and engorged and resorting to squeezing out the right over the loo. And it's annoying too that he treats the right nipple as a worry bead as he feeds from the left and very gently caresses it with the flat palm of his hand.

If he sees me getting changed, his face lights up and he pants with excitement. He never passes up an opportunity and it's surprising how when transfering an apparently dead to the world toddler to the cot that he can somehow in his sleep snuffle up my pj top and help himself on the move.

It may be annoying, but I really wouldn't want it any other way; especially when he is lying beside me and trying to slip in a sneaky thumb when feeding, or, when he looks up at me boob in face and gravely offers me his thumb to suck so we can suck together

thankyou Alcrowley :) is reassuring to know that other mums go through the same things too with BF is nice to know am not alone!