Biting Breastfeeding Boy

[peacecat]

My 1 year old son bites when breastfeeding. Only occasionally, but in annoying and nervewracking spells. I don't think it's strictly a teething issue as he has displayed so little teething related discomfort overall. it seems to be boredom or "i'm not ready to sleep yet" behavior. often, i yelp in pain and then he makes the square lip scared face and cries. i try telling him no firmly and ending bf for a few minutes but that often elicits tears. any other ideas to help him stop this before it becomes a habit?

[MarineWife]

First, you might want to ask to have this moved to the breastfeeding forum or repost this same question there. You'll get a lot more great information over there.

Can you anticipate at all when your baby is going to bite? The best thing to do is head him off before he does it. My baby just started biting down a little bit again lately. I can usually tell when he's going to do it and I tell him nicely not to bite. Sometimes he cries and sometimes he just looks at me and starts nursing again. After the first time I let him continue nursing if he wants, especially if he got upset from being told not to bite. If he bit again after that, I would might stop the nursing but that hasn't happened yet.

Once he's biten the best thing to do is stay calm, take him off the breast, tell him not to bite, soothe him if he cries and ask him if he wants to try nursing again. I know it's hard not to yelp but that might encourage him some because he gets such an exciting reaction out of you, even if it does scare him. KWIM?

The fact that he's displayed little teething discomfort doesn't mean that the biting isn't from teething. My baby hardly shows any teething discomfort but he just had another tooth break through the gum and that's just about the same time he started biting again.

HTH

[Brandi]

My son bit and I tried everything to get him to stop. I think crying worked the best. When he bit, I would cry, just like he does - starting out slow and breaking out into a full cry with mouth open and eyes shut tight. It was a sight to see, but it worked. He didn't like it when I was sad. He alwaya laughed at me when I yelled or yelped. It got bad enough that I was bleeding and ready to quit nursing altogether.

Good luck!