Does any one have a suggestion about how I can stop my 6mth old from bitting while I nurse? His 2 front bottom teeth have just come through the gum this past weekend. Today he has used his teeth while nursing twice. I would like to stop this behavior as soon as possible so it does not become habit,but since he is so young I have not idea what how to let him know this is wrong.
My son only bit after he was bottle fed for a week at about 6 months. So, I would say NO very firmly...this would startle him at times where he did not want to eat the rest. Since this only happened about two or three time in a day or two after going back to breast feeding I was not really worried that he would not finish eating. We just picked up the next feeding.
Hang in there if you are firm it should not take but a couple of times.
My 6 month old daughter would bite. I either say "ouch, no bite" and pull her off, knowing that she is not actively nursing if she is biting or pull her into my breast briefly just long enough for her to know she is not to do that. Worked very well after once or twice pulling her into my breast. Hope this helps!
I did this with my children & it worked great. I would remove my breast from their mouth & kind of flick them on the mouth and say NO sternly. It took a few times but they stopped, within a couple of days. It didn't seem to really hurt them, just startled them & they stopped. I could also kind of tell when they were about to do it. They would kind of stop nursing & wiggle their jaw back & forth and I would immediately pull away & say NO (no flicking them on the mouth unless they bit). It worked great. He's not too young to get the connection.
unlatch him, then sternly say "no bitting" wait a second, and then let him latch back on. if you are consistent, they learn really fast. he will see that if he bites, he has to stop eating, and it wont be worth it.
With my daughter I would tell her no and take her off of my breast for a little while and after a while she stopped. My son is 4 months old and his bottom teeth are starting to come in so I will be dealing with that problem again soon.
When my first child did that it startled me so much that I jumped and yelped, causing him to let go, and he looked so surprised that every time he did it I yelped again and if he didn't let go I'd take him off. They're just trying out the new teeth and also they're amazed that they can cause a reaction in mom that way. If you watch, after the first day or so he'll start watching you to see if you're paying attention before biting, because he wants to see your reaction. They get bored with it really fast, so hang in there for a week or two and let him know it hurts and he'll quit.
with dd when she started getting her teeth and started biting during nursing i would unlatch her and give her a minute and then latch back. after a few times of that she stopped doing it.
.
I just read everyone else's responses and I agree. My son got his two front teeth when he was five months old and he did the same thing. OUCH! It was so painful! My husband would laugh at me and I just wanted to bite his nipples really hard and see how funny he thought that would be! Anywho, I did what my mother told me to do, remove the breast and firmly say "no, no" First of all, I don't think he realized he was hurting me. His teeth just started getting in the way and if he wasn't latched on, ready to nurse I ended up getting biten. I started to get a feel for when he was about to bite. I ended up cutting our nursing sessions shorter because I noticed my milk flow would slow down after he nursed on one breast for about 10 minutes. Then I would switch him over to the other side and when his sucking slowed again I knew he was pretty much done. That's when I would end our nursing time because he was biting me toward the end of his meal. YIKES! Just thinking about it again makes me cringe. He's ten months old now and it's been about three months since I've been bitten. It doesn't usually happen right away so please stick with it. Breastfeeding is so important and it will get better! Hope that helps :)
I have nursed four children and have always had to deal with biting. When they bit me I would immediately tell them no and pull them away from the breast, then if I put them back on and they continued it I would give them a little thump on the cheek (not too hard) but enough to let them know, tell them no and pull them off again.
All good replies so far. Depending on what you are comfortable doing, it is right to add some discipline to the life of even a 6 month old. The only thing I'd like to reiterate is to be very in tune to when it is time to switch the baby from the first breast. You don't want the biting to end up getting confused as the signal that he's done. That happened to me with my oldest son. For the subsequent babies, I added a stern no, and/or a light pinch at the base of their hairline behind the ear followed by a break in the nursing. They all learned pretty quick. When my oldest starting biting he was already 14 months. So when it became a consistent signal, we quit nursing. Best of luck!
