I'm so tired of being bitten!!! 1yr old biting me HARD!

[~Kim~]

Yep that's exactly what I mean!! (well I think they mean lol)

[Gigi]

i'm really tired
so haven't read all the posts

same thing happened to me

fiona jill - who i am not sure is still on this forum, but she was for several years, and she's also a aba counsellor, she gave me BRILLIANT advice, i can't remember the exact words, as i'm not a aba counsellor, but i'll try to put down the GUTS of what she said, and IT WORKED.

it was all about POSITION and DIRECTION.

yeh yeh to the "taking baby off and saying No in firm voice". i did that too, but it wasn't enough ON IT"S OWN for us. Once i changed the POSITION and DIRECTION like FJ suggested, it made it PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for bilby to actually bite me.

i had been shown, the correct way to hold my baby in my arms, to feed her.
Months of her being tiny, and having no teeth, i got lazy and stopped using the positioning techniques. So i had to re-learn them.

basically baby needs to be ON THEIR BACK, so their CHIN is way back, cos their mouth is searching out your nipple. (see, i can't explain this very well in words!).
that is the DIRECTION bit of the puzzle.

the POSITION bit of the puzzle relates to their BACK PALETTE and your NIPPLE.
in combination with the DIRECTION part, this makes it impossible for the bub to BITE DOWN - which is what you want, so they can't bite you.

i'm hoping barb glare will come in here, and translate my pitiful words, into the meaning i want to get across.

it made ALL the difference to me and my bilby's bf-ing r'ship - without that GOLD advice, we wouldn't have been able to keep going.

Fiona Jill expressed it so well, her advice was in WORDS, not on the phone, so if i could find that post again, i would cut n paste it for you.

best of luck.

[Shanti]

Gigi - thank you thank you!!!!! I am feeling very DESPERATE here I even expressed this afternoon 100ml's in a bottle to give to DD just so she could have some of my milk and I wouldn't get bitten which she drank it all, whilst biting the teat on the bottle! but i don't want to get her used to this idea as she'll definitely wean off me if I keep doing that.... I'm not ready to wean her yet.... surely we can overcome this???? She is biting me DAILY and a few times a day..... I'm really over the biting.....
I wish FionaJill would come back in here! I noticed she hasn't posted on here in ages.

Barb????

(I've just started my ABA training to become a counsellor which I'm so very excited about but this problem with BF'ing I have no idea about what to do!!!!)

[Shanti]

Is my DD trying to wean herself???? I'm not ready. OR is this one of those nursing strikes they do??? I'm not liking it....

[onthefly]

Shanti, no I don't think she's weaning. Don't offer her bottles if you're worried about that.
Great advice from gigi! I hope you can find a way to get through this. DS went through a biting phase at this age and I honestly got to the stage where I didn't want to feed him anymore (or worried that I just couldn't). I never offered him an alternative, just stopped feeding him for half a day at a time cause I just couldn't face it. After the last time he just stopped.
Sorry I can't be of more help to you

[MantaRay]

Hun, you are doing such a great job. I'm sorry that you are going through this. Biting really hurts

When is it that she's biting? If it's at the start of a feed, it might be related to teething, and giving her something cold to chew on before a bf might help. Or it might also be impatience for you to let down, in which case expressing a bit before attaching her might help. If it's at the end of a feed, she's probably finished and playing. Detatching her before she gets a chance to bite works best, although it can take a while to get the hang of knowing when she's going to do it. While she's sucking - when you can hear that suck-swallow, suck-swallow pattern going, she shouldn't be able to bite you as her tongue in the way. So the trick is to pull her off as soon as she gets to the flutter sucking.

Gigi is right that careful attention to attachment can help too. It's really easy to just let them attach at that age without paying too much notice, but by making sure she's on properly it makes it harder for her to bite, and you can generally get some warning when she's going to as you can feel (with experience) the mouth movement. Changing the position she is in when she feeds might be all it takes (or not!).

Best of luck hun. I am sure you will get through this - you are one of the most determined people I know.