I know this is probably a common question, but I am at my wits end at this point. My 9 month old is 'exploring' his knew set of chompers. He started biting clothes and pulling it out of his mouth while he was teething, and I just figured that it felt good on his gums. But now that he has 2 bottom teeth and 2 top teeth he is biting everything, forearms, shoulders, knees, fingers. In fact when my mom took something away from him that we should not have had and was about to put in his mouth he screamed, grabbed her hand and stuck what he could in his mouth and bit down. So from that I am assuming he is aware that it is not something he should be doing.
I am also nursing. I would really like to make it to a year, but I am not sure I can. He started biting around 8mnths, but not often and once I unlatched his and relatched, it did not seem to be a problem. Now he is doing it much more often. I nurse 3x a day with an expressed breastmilk bottle once (im beginning the weaning process). He is a VERY fickle eater when it comes to solids so I am not comfortable removing a feeding just yet, but that also makes me worried about switching to formula.
moral of the story (or question in this case) is does anyone have any advice? (when he first started biting I would push his head into the breast and that would get him to stop, but that does not work anymore...)
Thank you to everyone!
Can you pump? with both my kids I pump since they were 6 mo., so I only bottle feed breast milk. I'm still doing it with my 2nd son (7 mo.) and I did it with my eldest for 13 mo.
Hope you can do it.
Gook luck!
Hi J.,
Biting is a natural stage of development, but knowing that, it doesn't help when you're the one being bit.
When your son bites something he shouldn't, say is a strong, but not yelling voice, "Ouch! no biting___". Next, give him something OK to bite, like a teething biscuit, saying, "you can bite this."
You may also want to look into baby signing classes. If you can provide your baby the ability to communicate with you, he'll be less likely to bite out of frusteration.
Remember, do not punish for biting. Since it is a natural stage of development, punishing him would be like punishing for peeing in a diaper, something he cannot control.
Good Luck!
R. Magby
I gave my biters a bite rag, which was simply a clean wash cloth to bite or chew, since they liked to chew clothing it seemed! I also kept one in the freezer if it was a teething issue. When biting seemed more frequent, I assumed they were teething, and I carefully stuck a clean finger in their mouths and felt around. Often, I felt something, or could tell by their wincing reaction that I hit a sore spot. For that, I ran through once more with Baby Orajel. I think they hated the taste & feel so much that alone discouraged a lot of biting! I nursed my first for 13 months and my twins for 12 months. All 3 bit around this age. When nursing, if they bit, I said firmly, but calmly "No biting" and resumed nursing. If they bit again, I stopped nursing and offered them their bite rag or finger food.
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When nursing, don't unlatch and relatch right away. There's no consequence to that. Say "Ouch. No bite." and Put him down for a minute or two. Most babies catch on REALLY quickly that the milk goes away when they bite:) Don't yell, just be firm and direct while looking him in the eyes.
Good advice already-- I would only add that I used the phrase, "ouch--no teeth" since he already knew what teeth were. It's a really good time to teach him about not hurting other people by over-dramatizing your pain. They can be taught not to bite because the milk stops, or not to bite because they hurt you--a much bigger lesson. You're his whole world --he doesn't want to hurt you, so seeing and hearing you express pain teaches him not to cause pain.
My first son (who started teething at 4 months) would start to bite at the end of his feeding, when he was no longer hungry. I would watch for cues that he was sated and unlatch him before he would start to bite (of course I learned this after being bitten a couple of times). It only lasted a short time and I was able to nurse him to 14 months. My current 5 months old does not have teeth yet, thank goodness, since he chomps down and pulls - ouch. He also doesn't bite until he's done eating so watching carefully helps.
Also make sure that if you are expressing milk and someone else is giving him the bottle that they aren't letting him play with the nipple. I saw my husband playing a little "game" with our first born where he would let him bite down and pull the nipple and he would giggle.
It is very difficult to get a baby this young to stop the biting, and we had the same problem with our son. What I did instead, was gave him a wet wash cloth to chew. It seemed to soothe his achy gums from the teething process while allowing him to bite down on something. He's now three and occasionally chews on one when he has the urge to bite. It really helped a lot since I couldn't figure out a way to keep him from biting. He once bit my mom on the inside of her thigh while she was washing dishes and ignored him; to say the least it was quite painful to my mom and he giggled. That taught us that he was aware of what he was doing and we began to separate him from us telling him that biting and hurting people was not allowed. He was closer to 18 months when that happened though.
Best of luck, I know this is a difficult phase, but it too shall pass! :)
when he bites say ouch really loud.
I had a similar experience with my son sometimes biting me while nursing when teething. When it happened I would immediately unlach him, look him in the eyes and say a firm no; wait a moment and nurse again. Seemed to work. I did notice a big correlation between what else I was doing while nursing and when he'd bite. If I tried to read mail or magazine, talk on the phone, check email, etc., that's when he would do it. So, I stopped doing those things and he stopped biting. We did make a little over a year before weening. Enjoy it while it lasts!
I had a real problem with my son biting while nursing when he started to get teeth (at 5 months!), and I was not about to wean him that early. I read a lot of advice about what to do, and decided to just end feedings when he started to bite. He got the message pretty quickly that as soon as he started doing that, his meal would be over.
As for the aggressive biting, I would start having him do "time outs" in a playpen. We started our son with time outs pretty early (well before he was a year old). Just 90 seconds in the playpen with no toys or distractions seems to get the point across, and when I tell him that what he's doing might result in a time out (now at 14 months, but he has recognized the consequence for quite some time), he will stop (most of the time).
Hope this helps.
