I'm so tired of being bitten!!! 1yr old biting me HARD!
DD turns 1 next week and after a VERY rocky breastfeeding start..... the first four months being very difficult in terms of many obstacles we overcame in terms of breast refusal, cracked nipples, low milk supply due to weak suck from birth, poor attachment, top up feeds of ebm/FF, anyway..... we got through all that and at 4mths things were just perfect for us!!! (finally after all that hardwork and tears)
We've had a wonderful BF'ing journey ever since...... however the last few weeks, DD has been biting me VERY hard on my nipple. It hurts soooo much. It's not just a little nip and she lets go, it's a full on chomp and pulls the nipple away from me still clenched in her gums/teeth. She has 4 teeth too so it makes it ever more painful!!!!
She almost drew blood the other day.... and it felt like my nipple had been ripped off.... I needed ICE on it. Get the picture?
I need her to stop. It's making BF very difficult and making it so hard for me to feel relaxed when she latches on and feeds as I'm so nervous she is going to inflict more pain on me. I am getting to the point where I want to pinch her back to teach her that if she hurts me like that, she will get hurt too but that's not really right to do to a nearly 1 yr old is it????
Some feeds she won't bite me but MOST feeds she does lately..... I think she is getting 2 more teeth coming through soon so she's started teething again but omg does she have to bite me so often and so hard???? I went through enough pain in the early months I don't need to feel this pain again! She bites me at least once a day lately and on a bad day like yesterday she could bite me up to 5 times.
I have tried saying "no" firmly and putting her down for a few mins and I have tried pushing her face into my breast so she can't breathe and has to pull off (ABA recommended this) and that doesn't work, she still grips on and smiles at me. And I have said to her "OUCH" really loud "you hurt mummy" but she doesn't really understand.
I want to keep breastfeeding but this biting is becoming a big challenge.
I did what the others suggested and it worked for me too so I have no more advice
If it's teeth and she's biting bc she has sore gums have you tried giving her something to bite on, like a washer from the freezer for a bit first so she can get that out of the way, and then feeding her?
When you say no and put her down for a few minutes, do you then offer the breast again?
she's old enough to understand that you don't want to feed her if she bites - so maybe just don't feed her for a while.... i know the last time DS bit me (and he DID draw blood) I flat out refused to feed him for teh rest of teh day. he was probably about the same age as your DD and teethign too. so he went probably 5-6 hours without a feed and never bit me again. just a thought
I've got a biter too. He thinks it's hilarious and has teeth since 5 months. Now he has 9 so I totally get you on the hurt factor. He bit hard enough a couple of weeks ago that the wound got infected
Two things have worked for me.
1. Like the other have said - shutting up shop. The first few gentle bites I ignore and just release his grip (I am quite good now at not jerking away - it hurts way less than if I do). When he continues, I say No! very loudly and put my finger in his mouth to release the bite then I put him down.
2. Nate was still feeding quite often during the day like every 3 hours (7, 10, 1, 4, 7). So I cut a feed out. That worked for a bit and he was more interested. Then he started the biting again, so we stretched out the feeds again and he only has 3 in his waking hours now (morning, lunchtime and bedtime). He feeds much better at all three feeds and the biting had stopped completely.
If he's distracted by other stuff going on around whether we're out or Darcy's running around or whatever, he's harder to feed too and will often bite in his effort to 'get away' lol.
Yep, I've often put her down when she's bitten me and put her back with her toys or what she was doing previously to distract her and she then may not feed again for another 2hrs or whatever... but sometimes she will still bite again
Kim - maybe I should try what you are doing... now that she's nearly 12mths she doesn't need to feed as often anymore.... maybe so she's really wanting the boob, I only offer at certain times of the day. So do a morning, lunch and evening feed.... hmm that's an idea.
We are still feeding on demand here and on a typical day from waking to going to bed she'll probably feed 4-5 times but probably only have 3 good feeds out of all of those.....
ikwym.... I think DD sometimes bites me as a way of telling me she's had enough instead of just coming off!!
Heaven - yeah she has plenty of things to chew on without her needing to chew my boob! She has her books her toothbrush she loves chewing it, maybe i should offer her toothbrush first and carry that with me wherever i go lol....
She fed to sleep tonight (first time she's fed to sleep in about 3wks!! Yay!! I've missed that... ) and it was bliss! No biting.
BellyBelly Life Member - Love all your MCN friends
Jun 2004
The Festival State
3,008
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.
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, 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
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.
Thanks MR & Marcellus I was hoping you ladies would post in here as you always help me out so much.... !!
Ok, so I won't offer her another bottle .... if I do express it's only because I want to ensure my milk supply is ok!!! I'm not ready for the liquid gold to dry up just yet or to stop BF!
I had a feeling she wouldn't be weaning as most babies don't wean this young do they? Like it's not common? but I guess I'm just worrying and getting upset about this biting because it's all very new to me and has come on suddenly iykwim? and hurts!!
The last few days that she's been doing this, we've really only been feeding once in the morning, once around lunch time then once or twice in the arvo and maybe once before bed that's it... so really only 3-4 day feeds.... i know she doesn't need any more than this as she is nearly 1 anyway. I'm not offering as much as I was (probably 3hrly before) and maybe this will help.... so when she does go on, she'll be thirsty for it and not muck around as much.
MR - she bites down sometimes at the beginning and other times at the end. Sometimes in the middle too!! I've been watching her very carefully when she feeds and if she clamps down (which she's still doing today but not real hard today yet....) i am there ready to put my finger in to break the seal. That seems to work better than pressing her into my breast
and thank you MR.... that's a lovely compliment. I am pretty determined, I like to think anyway! I would hate to think I stopped BF and then look back to realise we could have overcome it and kept going! So far today, we've had 2 big beautiful feeds. No biting! SO maybe she is getting the idea.
It was Gigi's reply to the other ABA thread on here that I got a notification for that made me come back & have a bit of a lurk.
But you know what, for the life of me I can't think of what it was I told Gigi about biting!
Gah.. its been so long since I did any ABA stuff. let me think...
Chest to Chest, Chin to breast..
It really does help to go back to the ABC's of breastfeeding. P&A is the key to solving a lot of problems. Biting is no different. Like Gigi said if you can get your P&A right then you should be able to get her to stop biting. I have had biters. Iain who is 15 months is a bit of a biter too. But not as bad as what you are going through.
There are 2 things I use to help get it across what I mean when I talk about attachment. Think of a burger, a big take away shop burger, not a ****y little big mac from Macca's. Now when you bite into that burger you tend to place the lower bun on your lower lip/teeth & then sort of *fold* ( thats not the right word.....) the rest of the burger into your mouth.
You need to do this with your breast when she attaches. She needs to get the underside of your areola at the bottom lip & have the rest of the areola/nipple to fold into her mouth so she gets a nice mouth full of breast.
See if you stuck that burger in your face & just tried to bite into it, you would end up with a mess and not much in your mouth. Its the same with BFing, if she is just coming at you & getting on, its likely she isn't attaching as good as she should.
What you need to do to get this is for you to bring your breast down to her mouth from her nose. So if you try this you should understand what I mean. Place the ball of the palm of your hand on your nose & drag it down to your lower lip. So you need to do that with the underside of your areola& then as that hits her lower lip & she opens to get the breast, you need to shove the top side of your areola/nipple into her mouth.. KWIM?
I know she is older so it will be a bit harder to do it exactly like that but if you can still achieved the same results then do what works.
The other thing to think about & even do is where you nipple should be in her mouth. Suck your thumb. If you put it in your mouth & suck the tip of your thumb should be right at the back of your mouth near the soft palate. This is where your nipple should be in her mouth. Which you should be able to achieve by doing the above when she latches on.
Another thing actually to help is watch her tongue if you can. When she is attached & smiling can you see her tongue cupped around your nipple? Her tongue, if she is attached properly should be forward & curled around your nipple/areola. Its actually really cute LOL. If she starts to muck about & you see her grinning at you & you can't see her tongue, get her off as she is gonna bite!
She can't or more so shouldn't be able to bite if her tongue is forward because essentially she is going to bite her tongue if she does.
Really during these stages of biting (mine bite when they are teething also) all you can really do is be alert & ready for it so you can stop her before she does it.
Watch for her signs of being finished at the breast & be ready with a finger to slip it in & get her off when she is done so she doesn't get that chance to slip her tongue back & bite down.
Make sure she is hungry so she feeds & not mess about. Let her come to you for a feed so you know she is hungry.
Offer her something cool & hard to chew on before a feed. Maybe rub her gums with your finger as well.
She will understand that it hurts & no more boob if she keeps doing it if you are consistent with putting her down when she does it.
Don't let your gaurd down during feeds until you are sure she has stopped with the biting!
Shanti I have had the same issues with my bubba with biting. a gf of mine who is an aba councellor gave me great support and we got thru.
My grand mother always said to me growing up ( she had 8 babies) That if you give them a quick flick with your finger when they do it they will stop cos they don't like it and it is instant consequence.
I really struggled to do that cos I didnt want to hurt my baby but one day she bite me so deliberately I reacted by instinct and flicked her cheek lightly and said no and took her off. She had been biting me and then looking at me with a cheeky little grin. It had become a game to get my reaction. I also realised that I was expecting her to be feeding alot longer than she needed to now and so I was trying to encourage her to feed longer than she needed to. At the end essentially she was just bored and when I looked really closely she would slip the nipple down from the back of her mouth and then bite it as it slipped thru her cheeks. I tarted to notice when this happened and stopped her by pre empting her response. I was probably that more than giving her the flick but I think it also helped me and her. Me because it helped my psyche... I felt like I was showing her a consequence that it wasn't a game and I didn't like it. And for her she learnt to watch my expression and understood I didn't like it. She isn't evil and I think she wanted to know that too. What I did wasn't cruel of really all that hurtful but it did shock her a little bit. christ she hits her head 5 times a day 10 times harder than what I flicked her but it wasnt what she expected from me so it made her think.
I hope that helps some what... if it helps, Barb said to me when I posted.." maybe grand ma has something there" or something to that effect and it made me feel better
Bella
PS she has stopped now but it is really scary and I still flinch a little when I see her start to play with my nipple
I feel your pain (literally!). DD is 14 months old and has just gone through a 2 week phase of doing exactly what your bub is doing. Funnily enough we had an almost identical start to our BFing journey, too, and it took us about four months to get into the swing of it after comp feeds, nipple shields and weak sucks (after time spent in the NICU for a brain injury sustained during birth).
Anyway! She's getting her first set of molars through at the moment, and I'm quite sure that has something to do with it. She's also just started sleeping through the night, having two full days a week at daycare (during which time I don't express at work), and feeding about four times a day instead of about ten, so I'm pretty sure my milk supply has taken a dive, too.
In other words, I think her biting is a combination of teething, and frustration that she's no longer getting as much milk as she did before.
I've been responding by instinct- when she bites, she does so hard, and with all eight teeth. She's drawn blood a couple of times. So, my first instinct is to shout, loudly- I've been yelling "BAH!" (which is the correction Bark Busters dog trainers use- I've been well-trained by them after our quest to get our dog behaving!!).
It stops her biting, though it amuses her, too. I then pop her straight off the boob and say firmly, "No biting, biting makes mummy sad. Any more biting and there'll be no more boobies for you."
I then put her straight onto the opposite boob (I started doing this on the assumption that she was biting because the flow had dwindled on the first boob). Usually, she sucks for a while then bites that too, at which point I yell, "BAH!" again (and try not to laugh, because damn- she's still cute, even when she's biting me :P), pop her off, and say. "No biting, no more boobies until you stop biting."
Usually she doesn't even fuss at this declaration- she just hops down and wanders off happily (which has led me to another theory- that she's not really hungry at all at that point, and it's all a big game to her).
I have to admit, this approach didn't seem to be getting me anywhere fast- she was still biting me every single feed for nearly two weeks. But then she suddenly stopped doing it (and there's been no change in the milk quantity or in her molars breaking through)- so I think being very consistent in my reaction eventually paid dividends.
Hang in there, and be consistent, is all I can say. Hopefully the novelty will wear off very soon as it did for Sophie. I was a hairs' breadth away from just chucking it in and weaning her- we're *almost* ready as it is- but I'm glad I didn't give up. I want to go out on a high after all we've battled to get here.
Reply With QuoteOh I am not looking forward to that again...DS2 has started toothless biting already eeek!
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I'm so tired of being bitten!!! 1yr old biting me HARD!
It hurts soooo much. It's not just a little nip and she lets go, it's a full on chomp and pulls the nipple away from me still clenched in her gums/teeth. She has 4 teeth too so it makes it ever more painful!!!!
but omg does she have to bite me so often and so hard???? I went through enough pain in the early months I don't need to feel this pain again! She bites me at least once a day lately and on a bad day like yesterday she could bite me up to 5 times.
I want to keep breastfeeding but this biting is becoming a big challenge.
her toothbrush she loves chewing it, maybe i should offer her toothbrush first and carry that with me wherever i go lol....
) and it was bliss! No biting.
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
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.....
but this problem with BF'ing I have no idea about what to do!!!!)
or to stop BF!
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