DS constantly biting - is he effectively self-weaning?

[mackerella]

Bit of background: DS (14 mo) was EBF until 6 months old, when he became seriously ill. A side-effect of his treatment was that he lost his appetite (including for bf) and had to be partly tube-fed for 5 months. At first this was with EBM but after a while my supply dropped so much that we had to supplement this with a special high-calorie formula. He continued to bf sporadically (mainly for comfort, I think) but by the time he was a year old, he only had two bf a day - first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

He's now eating and drinking (cow's milk) normally, as well as having these two bf each day. However, for the last month or so he's been biting me at most feeds, but especially in the evening. I've tried various things - calmly unlatching him and saying 'no', ignoring it (ow!), waiting to feed him until he is calm and drowsy - but nothing seems to work. He just thinks it's really funny to bite on my nipple and then pull his head back to draw it through his teeth. (He has 9 teeth, so this is not trivial - although it doesn't hurt that much because he's not really biting down hard. I thought it was teething-related initially, but he does it every single feed now, sometimes after 30 seconds or so.) Recently, I've been just stopping the feed as soon as he does this, to let him know that it's not really on. He gets one more chance after five minutes but if he keeps biting me, we just miss out that feed. But this means that he doesn't get a feed (and I'm worried that my supply will dwindle even more). I guess if he really wanted to feed, he would, so this is effectively his way of saying that he would rather muck around than get some milk? Has he had enough of bf already? Has all the tube-feeding and formula topping up and general disruption 'ruined' bf for him?

I don't think he is making a conscious decision not to have milk. I expect he is having fun - ds loves to stretch and twist and pull, while rolling around and climbing over me and sticking his hands everywhere. I am like his own little playground.

He also bites when teeething or new teeth are just in. Does he wake in the night, have you tried a dream feed? As well as saying No I have been telling ds I don't like it, it hurts, sad face.

Your supply is much more established than with a newborn and even with the disruption I don't think it will disappear quickly.

What about feeding in a sling so he has less room for manoevre?

mack around 14/15 months bf my dts went really intense. they wanted to feed all the time, but also fiddle, play with my nipple, do the pulling off thing like your ds. I found I am best being quite strict (which only happens when I am at the end of my tether). If they hurt me the feed stops and my nipple is hidden from view. They cry (does your ds?), and I let them have another go quite soon, a minute or so. And repeat. I don't cancel the whole feed, as they seem to need to have the same consequence repeated many times in quick succession to get the message. This is what has worked for other behaviour like playing with the tv.

If it gives you hope, we are just into 16 months and things seem calmer.

Hi Albrecht and MamaChocoholic - thanks for your replies, that's very useful. Yes, I agree that he's just having fun - for a start, he always grins cheekily at me just before sinking his teeth in! He did cry initially when I said no and took him off, and eventually used to calm down and feed a bit more (although it was never more than a minute or two). But we've had several evening feeds in a row now where he's not even tried to have any milk - he's just latched on and bitten me immediately. Even doing the hide-the-boob-wait-a-minute-and-try-again thing hasn't worked - all that happens is that I keep being bitten and DS eventually crawls off to explore a more exciting part of the bed!

Tbh, I've more or less decided to give up on the bedtime feed (although I will try a dreamfeed - good idea!), as it seems that it's something that I want to do more than DS does. Fwiw, he's still very keen to feed first thing in the morning, or if he wakes up in the middle of the night and comes into bed with us. I think the biting possibly stems from my trying to feed DS (out of habit/routine) when he's just not interested in milk and wants to play instead! (Yes, him wanting to play at bedtime is a whole other can of worms...)