15 week old nipple sucking - teething? thumb sucking?

[japhrimel]

My 15 week old DD has started latching onto just my nipple, having had no issues for a while! She sometimes does it straight away, sometimes she starts out fine and then slips to the nipple.

I think she's teething a bit so wondered if she was using me as a chew toy. Plus she sometimes seems to be trying to suck her thumb whilst suckling (I'm getting scratched too!) and pushes herself off me a bit.

I think I may have let this get more of an issue than it needed to be as I've got lazy because I could just leave her to get on with it and she latched herself on.

Any ideas of things to help other than just concentrating on her (not MNing whilst feeding! ), taking her off and putting her back on and holding the hand she's trying to suck?

I'm a bit concerned that if we don't sort this now, I'm going to get bitten a lot when teeth come through.

I would see (for a while at least) if stopping doing other things whilst feeding helps. Although it's sometimes easy to get on with other things whilst feeding, as they get older, they seem to get more inquistive and fidgety so perhaps just doing nothing whilst she feeds, may get her back into staying still.

If it's teeth, yes, she might be sucking your nipple to get over that but generally, they would tend to do that more I think once they'd had enough of a feed.

It will take a few attempts but every time she chews/sucks the nipple and detaches herself, just gently take her off, let her open her mouth wide again an relatch. Hope it works for you