How and whether to stop bf at 6 months - biting baby and back to work.

[Aherdofmims]

Have mixed fed my baby ds so far, partly due to early tongue tie and partly to fit in around rest of family life (I have 5 year old also).

Ds is 6 months, I have started back at work this week and he is fine with bf in the morning, when I get home and bed time (these are close together with dinner in between so may not get much at bed time!) plus usually one bf in the night because he is teething and wakes in discomfort. Bottles during the day all fine. So would not need to stop just due to work.

The thing is he already has two teeth at the bottom and keeps nipping me! It really hurts and makes me want to stop bf! I follow the advice and just remove nipple when he bites but it doesn't stop him biting again next time.

I kind of want to stop bf to avoid the biting plus on one level I feel I have finished iykwim.

However I am concerned that:

1. Bfing is helping his teething pain and we will be lost without it.
2. We will lose some of our closeness without bf
3. He will miss it a lot.
4. The process of stopping will be painful.

Any constructive thoughts welcome!

Oh and he is good with solids.

I think it's a very personal decision but I can say for us biting was only a problem for a week or two here and there when teeth coming through. I dealt with it by trying to ensure feeds a little further apart so hungry! You can't bite when you're sucking and watch closely, you can usually see when the jaw starts to clench... Owwww.

Wrt work... You can totally feed around work. I went back at 11m part time and baby was fine during day, never had any bottles (I didn't mix feed though as she was a bottle refuser) or wanted milk. She made up for it when we were together and didn't really seen to mind. I have to admit I did feed more during the night than I wanted to but part of that was my guilt of going to work. Things change quickly with babies and there's no way to know what it will be like in 2w / 2m / 6m. You can always stop or reduce at a later date if you want to, don't need to change things now in case of what might be in the future.

If you do decide to stop, just drop one feed at a time (leave at least a few days til next drop) and you shouldn't have too much discomfort. And you can always change your mind and build back up again.

They say don't give up on a bad day... Although those days when they came seemed v bad, I'm glad I didn't.

Ah re-read your post wrt work - Glad that part is going well.

I guess if you feel you might be done, you could try reducing. you might miss it - it is a special thing, but they all stop one day... I'm sure baby would deal with it ok, esp as so happy with bottles, but there are plenty of benefits for your health and his if you do go on. My fave benefit is that when they are sick and won't eat they never turn down boob! I also like that it's a sure fire way to induce sleep for Dd and me :-)

Thanks for the help jeggie. I think my problem is I want best of all worlds. He was fine on Friday night when I was away for a night at a reunion but am going on with bf for the mo. It was quite useful today when we went out for lunch and he kept fussing and wouldn't sit in the highchair. Had to get dh cut up my food though!

And who wouldn't want the best of both worlds!!

IMO there aren't many downsides to breastfeeding after you've got through the demanding first weeks/months... You can go out for the night or even be apart all day several days during the week and generally your supply should be well established to cope.

If you ever think it's dropping you can try and bring it back by feeding more regularly for a while.

Maybe just see how it goes for a bit?

It is true, what others have said here, that a baby can not suck AND bite at the same time and that you can keep an eye on if the jaw starts to clench and then withdraw the nipple.
In Scandinavia by far the most babies are breastfed for 9mts-1 year and formula is not popular. But then each family gets 1 year nicely paid childleave (3 mts just for mum, 3 mts just for dad and 6 mts they can divide as they want(some parents with a first child BOTH take the first 3 mts together to get used to being parents) which makes things easier.
I breastfed my daughter for 1 1/2 year (morning and evenings after 1 year, with some solids introduced gradually when I went back to work and my daughter was at the daycare centre. She continued being happy with the breastmilk/bonding, but wanted it less and less and at the end only just before bed (great as the bf made her pleasantly drowsy, making some evening grownup time possible). In the end, it seemed she weened herself at 18 mts without any traumas. I enjoyed the bonding and knowing that I produced the food she needed and as far as I can see, cleaning bottles and heating formula is fussy and cumbersome besides that formula is expensive. My daughters father and I have instead used the money saved on going out for meals and paying for the babysitter.
I have been bitten too and learnt to avoid it by keeping a close eye on my daughters face while she fed, but (here some of you will probably disagree)I found that I could stop her biting if I bit her too - on the shoulder (very lightly with no drawing of blood) after she had been "bitten" 6 or 7 times, my daughter stopped biting me and we again settled down to a peacefull and enjoyable feeding routine.