5 month old biting when feeding

[BrainGoneAwol]

Hi all.
Ds has one tooth already poking through and possibly another arriving (I think they come in pairs?) The last two nights and day he has bitten me every time he tries to feed.

He is ebf and refuses all bottles (lots tried over the past few months, all failed) and dummies. The only way I can feed him is to wait til he is sleepy. This usually therefore means screaming and collapsing from exhaustion first, night or day. Yesterday he only fed twice the whole day rather than his usual 4+ times. He would normally feed 3-4 times at night.

Everything I read seems to refer to older babies doing this who can be reasoned with or suggests things more suited to daytime. Eg distract them or give them teething toys (he can't reliably pick it up again to chew so that's no good for nights).

I am at my wits end, have painful nipples from his biting and I'm shattered from being up with a screaming baby who I can't feed. I've tried calpol and dentiox at night and teething toys in the day, but nothing stops him biting. I've tried things to stop him biting at the time (as suggested on Kelly and LLL) but he just does it again.

Please does anyone have any ideas?

I should add that I am getting paranoid about putting my breast in his mouth because it's so painful, which he is probably picking up on. I try to be calm by singing quietly to him but it's not very convincing when you are crying!

I really do feel your pain, DD had 6 teeth by the time I stopped BF. I'm not sure what the LLL and kellymom advice was but if my LO bit me I would yelp......it sounds odd but I was at the end of my rope and because it had worked when our dog was a puppy I just gave it a go. A short, sharp, high pitched yelp would make her stop.

Best of luck!

Yelping comes easily! This does help with stopping it at the time but he just doesn't seem to learn for next time. I guess because he's so young.
I completely agree though how knowledge cross-transfers from puppies!

Kellymom and LLL mostly seem to focus on talking to your child, which is why I feel they are aiming at babies older than 5 months, or giving them a teething toy, which isn't helpful if they are hungry at 3am...

Bump... anyone else with this problem?

To be honest it is difficult to get replies when you post in the middle of the night (seems to happen to me all the time). If you posted in AIBU you would have a flood of replies I'm sure, but then that's not really where it should go......sigh! Hopefully if I bump this someone might come and help.

If she bit one side I would yelp, pull her off and put her away from my body. After a few seconds I put her back on but on the other side, sometimes this helped even if just to rest the recently bitten one.

The yelp does help at the time but I didn't find anything that helped long term, the teeth do tend to wear down/be slightly less sharp but unfortunately they then get some more and the cycle begins again. I went up until 9 months and got a bite right up until the last feed.

Hi, I have been having similar problems, my DS is 7 months. Have you read the stuff on Kelly mom about spotting when the bite is coming? Apparently they can't bite while actually feeding as the tongue is in the way. Mine bites if the let down is too slow or if he has finished and is just messing around. I take him off quick when he starts to lose interest, which helps but is not a total solution.

I agree that saying no etc is unlikely to work so young, but have you tried popping the baby down on the floor for a few mins? I have not tried that yet as mine seems to have improved after a week of bad biting.

Hopefully your baby may be doing this in response to teething and might stop soon?

My 4mo DD2 is doing this too - and she has 3 teeth coming that I can see, maybe 4 as they do seem to come in pairs. I yelped involuntarily when she did this and either she got the message, or coincidentally the teething got better after a couple of days and she stopped. I'm sure it was related to the teething as she was latching badly and turning her face away while she was feeding at the time, and would only feed from her favourite boob for that couple of days...