please help- biting me while nursing

[eshallow]

my dd is 12 mo. she is biting me so much and so hard when she nurses and simply won't stop. before she had teeth she started and would clamp down on my nipple and not let go. the technique to pull them close did not work. she would stay clamped down and just look at me while i worried she would suffocate. i would have to break the suction and pry her off. she is VERY STUBBORN (payback for my hubby and my personalities) it didn't happen all the time though. she now has 4 teeth and chomps on me all the time. it hurts so much. i am afraid i am going to hurt her sometime from reacting to it. i have tried being very cross with her, practically yelling. i have tried turning away or putting her down and ignoring her if she does it. i have tried not reacting- though have to say not very well. i used to let her nurse for ever but now i don't let her linger. and that has cut down on some of it. but there are times (like just now) that i know she is hungry (she barely eats anything- still nurses for most of her calories) and cranky and wants to nurse but she insists on biting me instead. please help. i really don't to wean her but fear i will have to because i am so afraid that i will end up hurting her (that sounds awful). any other ideas. anyone else been through this and know that it will end.....

[rvamommy]

Oh mama... I know this is a tough one! My DD (now 17 mos.) used to bite me SO BAD. It was especially bad when she was teething. She also has the best (or worst) of both of our strong personalities - I like to refer to her as "persistent." What worked for us (after trying just about everything that you mentioned) was a combination of me yelling "NO!" and jumping and startling her a little bit. Sounds cruel, right? But once she was startled and unlatched I would just say "No! No biting Mommy! Be nice!" They're smart little buggers and she eventually got the gist of it, I just had to be - er - persistent.

This was especially bad when her teeth were bothering her so I made sure to give her lots of other things to chew on. We also got her a teething necklace, teething tablets, and would give ibuprofen at night b/c IMO, there is nothing worse than being woken from a sound sleep b/c you think your nipple has been bitten off.

Good luck and hang in there. It gets better as they get older.

[Unconventional1]

I right there with you. DD also likes to pinch hard too- she gets a tiny bit of skin in between her nails and rolls it between them. I can't sleep while nursing her because I need to be on guard the whole time . She mostly bites as she is falling asleep though. I have worked on reducing nursing at night, pulling her off before completely asleep and then getting her to sleep without the boob, etc.

I am getting so sore that I have contemplated switching to pumping and bottle feeding (something she has never had before)- but I don't really want to....

[eshallow]

thank you rvamamma- is just good to know other's dealt with same thing. and persistent is the word. i think spirited will be used a lot too
unconventional- oh the pinching. i know well! she does the skin twist/twirl thing too. and if she can get to that other nipple- forget it. (mothering your nursing toddler says the nipple pinching and twirling might be used to stimulate milk flow. like turning on a knob- interesting) if i remember to wear it a nursing necklace has helped me a bit with that. distracting her to that. or i put her hand in her hair and try to teach her to pull/play with her own hair. if that helps at all

[JBaxter]

Ive tied EVERYTHING the not reacting, the stern NO/STOP the yelling , putting it way nothing worked. My choices were to figure out a way or stop nursing. He left purple teeth marks on my nipple Finally out of despiration ( dont flame me) I flicked under his chin fairly hard and said STOP. It FINALLY got his attention. Ive had to do it 3 seperate times different days but ya know what I havent been bitten in a week. Its the only thing that worked for us. I really didnt want to stop nursing but I cant having him drawing blood either and we were very close to that.

[mushka3000]

My 18-month old is biting hard enough to draw blood. We are not having any success with anything I've tried to dissuade her so I am bumping this up for futher advice/comments.

(My babe was a happy nurser until about a week ago. Now she doesn't latch properly - I can feel teeth, and she's biting and scratching at my nipples. She has always been nursed to sleep and now instead we are spending the evenings fighting.)

[Materfamilias]

Aaargh, yes! The only thing that works for me is 1) recognizing when DD is going to bite -- she gets very still and has a mischievious look on her face and 2) pulling her off immediately and not letting her back on for a bit, which she HATES. She seems to know it hurts because she seldom does it really hard, but still ...!

[bluedaisy]

i feel your pain

my dd had a biting phase when she was about 12 months that lasted for a month. she is 13 months now so we've only been out of it for a few weeks.

I tried EVERYTHING...I told her no, i put her down, i pulled her close, i yelled, i did nothing...one night out of desperation i did something similar to the pp when I gently pinched the skin on her thighs - not enough to hurt her but enough to cause discomfort. i was just so exhausted and it hurt so much and i didnt know what else to do. i wasn't comfortable using that as a technique though so i never did it again.

i eventually ignored it, pushed her into my chest (sorry that doesn't work for you) and let her sit there until she asked to nurse again. eventually she stopped. i don't know if she just outgrew the phase or if ignoring it worked.

I put her to bed nursing and for about two weeks i would put her in her crib and leave the room for about 30 seconds when she bit. then one night she bit and pointed at her crib and laughed, so it was clear she thought it was a game.

so at that point i just stopped reacting because i thought maybe she was just wanting a reaction