Nursing and teeth
DS is 9 months and just sprouted his first tooth about a month ago. The first few weeks he bit me a few times but over the past week he has been biting a few times during every session and it HURTS. I have tried all the suggestions from kellymom including ending the session, saying "ouch' firmly, just pulling him off for a brief moment, and having no distractions with no luck. His nursing sessions have been very short lately as well. I recently have cut down on pumping sessions big time. Prior to cutting down my pumping sessions I had a huge supply so I'm thinking he barely had to work to get let down. Now that I cut my pumping down my supply I'm sure has dropped so he probably has to work harder which he isn't use to. So my worry is that my supply has dropped so much that it's not enough for him which is why he is biting as well. I do think he has working on another tooth due to all his symptoms these past few days (fever, congestion, nose running). Tonight for his bedtime nursing session I ended up nursing first and then giving him a bottle because he was biting me so much. He will just start humming and making noises and then bite me. I don't want to give up nursing- I've worked too hard and come this far to do that. So..anyone have any suggestions? I wasn't going to pump at all this week since I'm on vacation but may just do a morning and night pump to see what my supply is like. Other than that how can I stop the biting?
Re: Nursing and teeth
The only thing that worked when DS started biting me was to smoosh him into my boob. He would let go to breathe and I would be able to pull him away from my nipple. I only had to do that a handful of times before he learned to stop biting.
I hope it ends for you soon. I remember how painful that was.
I think you are right - he is biting you b/c there is much less milk now, he thinks by biting harder, more milk will come. He may also be using your boob as a teething ring.
To be honest, all the "stop-the-biting" techniques did not work for us either. I only nurse once a day night, at night, but DD has 9 teeth and it's pretty painful. I'm giving myself a mid-Dec deadline to wean completely. DD will be 14mo old by then.
Try to pump and see how much milk you have. When I stopped pumping, my supply went down a lot.
good luck!!
I nursed DD until she was 13 moz which for me was a little too long but - well - hindsight = 20/20 I guess. Anyway - I was all sorts of worried as to how to react when she bit and when it boiled down to it I didn't have to think much because at around 10 months she clomped down once, I screamed "OW", and she never bit me again. It was a kneejerk response and I felt horrible for yelling "at" her but I couldn't help it and she never did it again and nursed happily until she lost interest.
I think she was just curious as to what would happen - well - she found out!