is there anything I can buy to help me breastfeed a teething infant
without being bitten?
Sina is almost 3 months old & is already teething. She didn't start the
biting yet, but I can see it coming. She is nursing with more vengence
;) HELP!
Mona
Mama of Sina
born August 4th' 2004
> Hi there;
>
> is there anything I can buy to help me breastfeed a teething infant
> without being bitten?
>
> Sina is almost 3 months old & is already teething. She didn't start the
> biting yet, but I can see it coming. She is nursing with more vengence
> ;) HELP!
Don't borrow trouble. Most babies don't bite more than
once or twice. If she bites, stop the nursing session right
then. She will learn very quickly not to do that again. You
don't need a device, and it would seem somewhat silly to use
a device every time you nurse to avoid being bitten once or
twice. Also, I think three months is quite young for biting.
I think I've been bitten once by each child, and it was more
around 6-9 months.
Best wishes,
Ericka
But you're right, maybe I should wait & see first before buying
something I may not even use. :)
Thanks
Mona
--
Melissa (in Los Angeles)
Mum to Elizabeth 4/13/03
and a girl due early 3/05
"zolw" <zol...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Inxhd.451083$mD.155672@attbi_s02...
But the main thing you have to understand is that a baby can't
simultaneously bite you and nurse properly to get milk. In order to bite,
your baby has to change the position of her mouth on the breast because,
when she's suckling, her teeth simply aren't able to make contact to bite
you. So most babies only ever bite when they are not really very interested
in feeding any more and, so long as you are paying attention, you can almost
always head off a bite at the pass (especially after you learn what the
shift in the mouth feels like after the first time!) if you're paying
attention.
My kids all went through brief periods where they bit me, usually right
after they'd cut a tooth but sometimes for no apparent reason, and I always
just did what Ericka suggested and end the nursing session the second they
bit me. I'd also set them on the floor--no cuddles from Mommy if you bit
her! They didn't ever try more than a couple of times. And, while I would
say that being bitten can be pretty painful and quite shocking, it was never
something I considered bad enough that I worried overmuch about it or
considered weaning over.
> But you're right, maybe I should wait & see first before buying
> something I may not even use. :)
>
Well, the thing is, as far as I konw, there is no such *thing* as a device
that will prevent a breastfeeding infant from biting you.
--
Be well, Barbara
Mom to Sin (Vernon, 2), Misery (Aurora, 5), and the Rising Son (Julian, 7)
This week's suggested Bush-Cheney Campaign Slogan:
"Asses of Evil"
All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman
> but when did your kids start teething? Isn't it proportional? If they
> started teething at 4 months then it would make sense that they bite you
> at 6 months cause that's when the teeth would start coming out. This is
> my first child, so I have never experienced any of this. It just seems
> that her gums are killing her & she bites down on my fingers, why
> wouldn't she bite on my breast?
Mine chomped my fingers like demons from about 3 months
through...well...G. still does it at 15 months given the opportunity ;-)
Nevertheless, none of them bit more than once (maybe twice, in case
I'm forgetting something). You don't mess around with the food
source. I don't know anyone who would put up with being bitten
repeatedly, and I don't know anyone IRL who was bitten more than
once or twice per kid. Stopping the feeding (at least for a little
while) is a *very* powerful motivator.
Best wishes,
Ericka
Caden started teething early.. he also was biting at 3 months... He turned 6
months old yesterday and a few days prior to this his two bottom teeth
popped through :)
My experience with it, if they are really into nursing they wont bite, if
they are just playing with the nipple thats when they will bite... so be
careful of that :)
hth
--
Leanne
--------------------------------
Before you were conceived I wanted you,
Before you were born I loved you,
Before you were here an hour I would die for you,
This is the miracle of life.
My baby's first two teeth came in at 3 months (yup, that's not when she started
teething, that's when the teeth showed up). She is now almost 8 months, and
has bitten me hard enough to really hurt 3 times, once around 6 months and
twice around 7 months. The time around 6 months she appeared to be just
trying it out, possibly because she was teething again. I put her down on the
floor by herself until she was really mad, and then gave her some frozen
banana but didn't nurse again for at least 20 minutes. The two times around
7 months she had hand-foot-and-mouth disease and was clearly just so
miserable and confused she didn't know what to do. She's also taken a few
nips when either she couldn't get into a good position or she was getting
bored with the whole nursing thing and feeling experimental, but these were
not serious bites. For the experimental ones I put her down facing away from
me until she howled seriously. (I wish this worked for biting me other places,
but it hasn't so far -- she's bitten my arms half-a-dozen times in the last week
alone.)
Fingers make much better teethers than nipples; they're a better shape and they
have that nice resistant bone in them.
Elizabeth Zwicky
zwi...@gmail.com
In order to help your teething infant you can apply teething gel
before the nursing session. In the last days before each tooth cut
through, Yotam suffers horribly and the gel makes nursing bearable for
him. Of course this is an emergency measure, not for everyday use :-)
Steffi and Yotam 9.5 m/o and proud owner of 6 teeth...
Sorry I didn't see this question earlier. Teething or not, you can
stop biting in its tracks, and keep it from happening. It just
takes some attention.
In the first place, when your baby is nursing, she has the entire
nipple and at least half the areole in her mouth. In order to
bite she has to first slip down on the nipple. It is quite simple.
When the baby starts to slip down, latch her off, then latch her
back on correctly. If she continues to slip down and refuses to
stay up, end the nursing session. This will teach correct
behavior quickly without tears (yours or baby's).
Now, on how to latch off. You probably know how to do this
already, but here goes. Don't just yank the baby off the tit.
Ouch! She WILL bite down. :-( (I said you knew this already! :-)
You can use your finger to break the latch, or if the baby is
starting to slip down and is in danger of biting, you can press
the babys face against your breast. When she opens her mouth
to breath, you can extract your nipple whole and unbitten. :-)
Try it, it works!
Larry