Ouch! Don't want to stop bf, but I'm being bitten so much I have holes, please help!

[EsmeWeatherwax]

Er, as it says in the title really. DD2 is 8mo, and has recently cut her two bottom teeth. She's full of the cold too, which I'm sure isn't helping, and I'd be willing to ride out the storm, but my nipples actually have holes on the underside where she has bitten trough the skin! SO how can I heal them, and stop her biting. Its so painful I'm scared to feed her, and I really don't want to stop bf, as I'm incredibly proud I've gotten this far, and I can't be faffed with bottles!

Poor you! My baby is four months and I dread the day she gets teeth (wrt BF) I think I'll probably stop if she starts puncturing me...

No advice (sorry) but I'm sure someone'll be along soon with good suggestions.

how long has she been doing it?
DS used to bite every time he cut some new teeth, while he got used to them, and then stopped, day or so later. Never as badly as you seem to be though

Ok, first of all - are her teeth normally in contact with your nipples? They shouldn't be - her tongue should cover them. So maybe you need to do some fiddling with her latch? What's your local breastfeeding support like?

Second, is she biting down? The recommended fix for that one is, whenever she bites, to press her head into your breast. No, she won't be able to breathe. She will stop biting, very fast, and this should put her off. (No, it's not nice. But it's nicer than you bleeding, and having to stop breastfeeding.

You've done well to get so far, I'm sure we can find a way to help you carry on!

DS started biting at around 7 months. Think it was due to teething. I phoned a bfing line and they suggested that I tried feeding lying down for a bit. It worked for us.

i have the same problem, it eases for a few days and then dd (10 months) chomps down again. my left nipple is in tatters. i tried the bf lying down but it didnt help, ditto breastshields. im lucky in that she will take EBM in a bottle. what ive been doing for the past couple of days is to express 2-3 of bottles for the daytime and feed her 2-3 times overnight myself- she dosent seem to bite when sleepy. not ideal but i dread feeding her during the day as the pain is so bad. I fed ds till he was 18 months, well excl. expressed, so i really want to do the same for dd. DH thinks i should give up bf now, but im just not ready.
i feel your pain!

Sorry I haven't been back to this...thank you all for replying!

Notquitecockney, her latch is fine as far as I can see, normally you can see her wee tongue over her teeth, its just like suddenly she'll stop feeding and drag herself backwards while biting down, hence the holes! I can never catch her quick enough to stop her.

She is better when sleepy/or when we feed lying down at night, but I have a 2.8 yr old too, so its not always possible to get into this state!

Moanyhole, I'm trying to get her to take ebm during the day, but she's a stubborn wee monkey, absolutely doesn't want to know!

Just take her off and say no when she does it and try not to react as you don't want to give her a funny reason to do it again. She won't get anything out if she's biting so by removing her you are reinforcing that.

I agree with confuddledDOTcom. When DS bit I did take him off me straight away and just plonked him in the middle of the floor with a "No, that hurts Mummy".

It did stop it initially, but when the teething was at its worst it didn't, thats when I phoned the NCT bfing line.

Although my dd didn't get teeth whilst i was bf she did clamp her gums and that flippin hurt. I used to do what the toher have recommended, take her straight off (pressing her into the breast if she was doing to clamp and pull) and putting her down and saying that hurts mummy. Then wait a while and put back on. Its meant to teach them that every time they do it they loose the feed iyswim.

hth

My DS did this - he was a bit older I think (11 months?) as had top and bottom teeth - but I could never catch him before he bit me either! Ouch! Oh and on the rare occasions I did get him off without biting he'd act like he wanted to feed again and then as soon as he latched on he'd immediately clamp down and drag off!

To allow the wounds to heal (after suffering for ages and beginning to dread feeding) I changed the position of feeding so if he did bite he wouldn't catch the same bits (he was ripping the scabs off so they never healed) - I found that just changing to a rugby hold made him less likely to bite though, as the biting had become a habit with him IYSWIM. After a week or so when he'd stopped biting I changed back to previous hold and he bit a couple of times so I alternated holds til he stopped biting completely.

I also started rubbing EBM into the cuts after each feed - apparently it has something in it that speeds healing!

I didn't find that pulling his head into me worked, but shouting no and putting him down had some effect - although not much use before naps/bedtime!

Good luck with it, DS is now nearly 15 mths and still feeding ok and hasn't bitten since then!

Thanks again for all your advice. I've been trying to take her away immediatley she bites, and have only been chomped on twice today, so thats an improvement. Oddly enough it seems to be always when she is on the left nipple that she bites worse, so I've been keeping her on the right for most of her feeds too...the left one is too sore anyway!

I'll try the rugby hold tomorrow too, see if that helps.

My DS started doing this a while ago (perhaps around 8 or 9 months - I can't remember exactly). He bit me loads, and lots of people told me it was time to stop BFing, which really annoyed me - I felt it was overstepping the line.

Instead, I told my DS 'no', strongly, if he did it. If he did it again, I put him down and stopped the feed, for at least a few minutes. If he got upset by being put down I took that as encouragement that this approach might actually work (most of the time he actually laughed when I said no!).

It seemed like he would never stop. And it hurt! But we stuck at it.

Now, DS is 1, and he pretty much stopped biting about a month ago or maybe more. He's hardly bitten me for ages, except this week a couple of times, when he had a cold and found it difficult to feed.

Other than that, the phase has passed. I'm so glad we persisted.

Maybe worht checking she's on ok if it mostly one side?

Sigh, she changed to the other side today, now they're both in tatters. Admittedly she's only bitten me once on each side, but because they're already healing its more painful.I am hoping she'll stop it once this very snuffly cold she has clears up, and she gets the chance to really feed properly without having to pull off to breathe. So I'll give it a few more days. Lol...not that I'm going to stop anytime soon, because she won't take a bottle anyway! Will get MIL to check my latch etc when I see her tomorrow maybe, she is an hv with 5 bf kids of her own so she might have some more advice!

In case anyone is interested...the biting seems to have calmed a little, I've found swaddling her while I'm feeding helps immensely, as does feeding lying down. I still get the occasional nip, but its not making me cry anymore! So it looks like we'll be going for a while longer!