HELP! My 6month old just started beating me up!

[femalephish]

Now when I nurse my EBF'd 6m DD she squirms and hits me with her top hand, kicks with her legs and pinches me with her bottom hand. I know, squirming is normal and I used to think her kicking with her foot was cute but now sometimes it's really hard and it HURTS. It seems to be worse when she is sleepy, so I am trying to calmly nurse her to sleep and she is beating me up. She even pulls at her own hair, poor thing. Any advice? I don't know how to get her to sleep without nursing!

[Red Pajama]

Use a large, thin flannel blanket and swaddle! I'm an "extended" swaddler, and have swaddled 2 of my 3 for a very long time. Certainly they were still swaddled for nursing/sleeping at 6 months. It stops that mindless arm or leg swinging, and helps settle them for sleep. Just because baby can wiggle out of a swaddle doen't mean you should stop-- it can still be a sleep cue that helps baby fall asleep, but isn't confining the whole night.

I hand-make my swaddle blankets. I use single thinkness flannel. I use material 1 yard X 1 1/2 yard, with the edges hemmed. I have quite a few, because you can never have too many.
Good luck.

[pagodafish]

I love red pajama's suggestion to swaddle. I am still swaddling DS at 7.5 months... it really does help.

Here is something to consider, though. Recently DS had been rough with me while nursing, particularly at night: banging his head, pinching my "free" nipple, kicking, pulling his own hair.... well, guess what popped up? His first tooth. He was acting like a monster because he was uncomfortable pushing that tooth up! He has calmed down quite a bit since the tooth surfaced. I try to remember that he is acting funny for a reason- it usually helps me to not get frustrated- it's possible your DD is going through a change (learining to sit up, a tooth, a new sound/word etc...) and that is why she is being fussy?

Good luck, and try wrapping her up! If you don't want to make your own swaddle- I am not a crafty person- Aden and Anais make swaddle blankets that work well on bigger babes.