Babble

My 10 month old daughter has started biting me while I'm nursing her.  It's very surprising when it happens (so it's hard not to respond!), and now that she has four front teeth, it's unpleasant and occasionally painful. 

Are there strategies to teach her that she shouldn't bite? 

 My mom told me to totally flip out the first time it happens - scare the heck out of the baby so he doesn't do it again. She says that worked to keep me from doing it. My baby is too young to confirm whether this works, but it's worth a shot.

My 8 month old son went through a short biting phase also. What worked for us was pretty simple...and didn't involve scaring anybody. (please don't follow that advice, it really isn't necessary to scare your baby...) I just kept my hand positioned  close to my breast (&  his mouth) and whenever he would start to bite I would (gently) break his suction from me. He realized  quickly that when he bites, the milk stops.

If the biting were to keep occurring during  a particular feeding, I would put away my breast and hand over a teether.

Good luck!
 

My son bit me one time and only once because I flicked his cheek with my finger. He never bit me again! He learned real quick what the response was going to be.

Scaring your baby can start a nursing strike. We're human and might react out of surprise--but don't do it on purpose!

Ending the session is enough to convince baby to stop biting mommy during nursing. You can add, "Don't bite," but calmly!

Also, try these preventative measures:

1. If baby looks distracted and about to bite, break the latch.  Continue if baby indicates interest.

2. Check if baby wants to bite or suck with a teether first before nursing.

 

Do you think babies bite on purpose to be mean or something? They do it because their teeth and gums hurt & bearing down feels good. 

If your baby is biting, you should give him something he CAN bite on....not flick him in his face or scream like a lunatic! 
Maybe next time you do something you can't help,
someone
should
flick
you
in
YOUR
face.

 

Just a little update.

I started firmly saying "no biting" then ending the nursing session.  If my daughter really put up a fuss, I made her wait 10 or 15 seconds then gave her one more try.  Watching her for signs that she's losing interest helped, too, because that's when she often bit.  It only took a few more bites before she seemed to understand that biting lead to being cut off, and she's not done it again for several days.

While I don't think she even understands that biting hurts me and it may even feel good to her, I do think she's old enough to learn not bite me.  This strategy seemed to work without having to even consider venturing into aversives like flicking her cheek.

My DD first bit me at 14 or 15 weeks. It was excruciating and I wanted to scream, but I managed to hold it in and thank goodness I did. She started screaming...her first tooth was popping through the gum. She got her second tooth a week later and didn't get her next two until right at 6 months.

We've only had a couple of instances since the 4th month incident and I have been very careful to firmly tell her. "No biting, That hurts mommy." I hold in any screams or howls of pain. I discovered that those noises tend to make her think it's a game. (Like when she bit my upper lip when I went to give her a little kiss and she just laughed.)

A friend told me after that first bite to talk to her, she really understands more than you think, and she understands tones as well.

I still have an occasional nip from her if she drifts off to sleep while nursing in which case I just ignore it-if she's sleeping she doesn't know what she's doing. :-)

I think the important thing is to remember to watch our reaction to the initial bite, be firm, and tell the child that it hurts mommy. When she is older I'll probably have different answers to this, but now at 6 1/2 months it seems to be working for us.