My 6 1/2 month old got her two bottom middle teeth right before she turned 6 months old. She bit me a few times before her teeth came in. She bit me again after the teeth had pushed through.
I screamed and squeezed her cheeks to make her open her mouth. Needless to say, this scared her and hurt her.
Both of us learned to be cautious. When she was really hungry and wanted to sleep, she would latch okay. She would gag, but she always tried again without biting. At least on the right side.
The left side though, she was always reluctant (this is the side she bit). When she gagged she would bite. The last few times that she attempted to nurse on that side, she was very, very cautious on her approach. While I was very, very anxious.
Well...this didn't end well. She would watch my face for any sign that things were wrong and I would so much as sigh and she would freeze and not try again. So I thought I should just forget it and only feed her one side. But not even on the right side does she want to try anymore.
It has been 1 week now and I miss it. A lot. :( It was our special time together. Just the two of us. Every evening. She doesn't really seem to notice the change. Or maybe she likes this better. She can bite the plastic nipple and no one screams. Her top teeth are showing signs of "activity"...
My question is... can I get her back? How?
She will continue to have my milk regardless as I pump several times a day. But I was really hoping that she and I could take this longer than with her brother, who was weaned at 7 1/2 months... when his teeth came in! I was hoping to do things better this time around. For him I pumped until his first birthday. I wanted to pump longer for her. I wanted to nurse her for longer so it wouldn't be just pumping!
Any suggestions are welcome and appreciated. Or should I just give up?
Thank you ladies for responding. I used to have a nipple shield but lost it. I went to buy a new one today. I tried it today right before bedtime (I knew she was hungry) but she is far too anxious to even try it. I ended up feeding her a bottle. :(
I did call her pediatrician; they have lactation consultants and I am going to speak to one of them tomorrow morning. I also called Milkworks and they suggested the middle of the night feeding and letting down some milk to entice her as well. I did try that second part last night and I was unsuccessful.
Thank you for your words of encouragement. I will continue to try.
G.,
Hey there, I'd contact LLL. You can get contact info online. I bet a short phone call to a leader could give you some great ideas and support. I don't think you need to throw in the towel yet!
Good luck.
S.
Good for you for breastfeeding! However - don't let anyone think that the only "special time" you can have with your baby is if you only breastfeed. Special times can come however you want them to - bottle is special time too at my house. Especially special for daddy. And doing things better is sometimes doing what makes mommy AND the baby happy. If that means not pushing the nursing then that is what it means. At 6 months moms milk is no longer as nutritionally satisfying for your baby. Right now it is just an emotional attachment. Which is great! But a bottle can be just as much of an emotional attachment. So don't stress out because you think you are doing a "bad" or worse job with nursing. Only not feeding your baby is a bad job!
maybe sing a soothing/familiar tune before and during the nursing. We sing a lot here and it's always something that relaxes the kids. Yeah, I think we've all been bit, and probably reacted similarly. Try to look elsewhere and smile a little while she's latching, maybe massage her leg (if she likes that), or adjust her clothes/blanket. A distraction for you and allows her not to read into your expressions. Praise her for "what a good drinker she is" when she latches on. She'll come back, if you try to nurse her more than give her bottles.
I think you can "get her back" but it may take time. La Leche can help or find a local lactation consultant. They should have lots of helpful idea. She may have rejected the nipple for a while, but can be brought back to it. I left my son for 2 weeks and was told he might rject me a first, but to just keep offering the nipple until he returned. This was from a lactation consultant traveling with me. I was lucky, no rejection, but the advice still holds.
Not reacting when they bite is SO hard. It is possible to stick with it though - we're at 2 1/2 years and a full set of teeth. Good luck!
just have patience mom! one of the things you can do about biting is instead of having a reaction, though i know thats a hard thing to do, is simply and abruptly end the feeding. this might not help you now when shes hesitant about it, but just making it no big deal but enough that she wont get to nurse after biting.... its the way to go. my son only bit me 2 or 3 times and after getting the idea that biting = feeding ending he stopped.
anyway, to get her back on, try taking some tylenol to maybe ease any pain in advance, and just try your best to barrel through it. you could also use some teething gel right on your nipple which would numb it and also her gums if shes got the teething pain. and just keep working at it.
find a local or nearby la leche league. they can help you or find books to help you. :D i love that group! its a must have for any mom! :D :D
anyway, congratulations mom for being so loving and wanting to continue nursing! i nursed my son until he self weaned at 19 months. it was so beautiful! :D i encourage you to just do what you can to continue this relationship! :D :D thank you from your baby girl!
I love the other response! So true! Each of my children bit me - but just the once. I think the shock to them, to me ? Yep, tensed up, afterwards, too - but they were cautions as well. A friend and lactation consultant helped out with our daughter - who nursed until 23 months! She suggested that expressing a bit of milk first (forcing a let down) would help the initial latching on. Additionally (her words) 'cram her mouth so full that she can't bite'. And it worked. If their mouths are wide open, they don't have an opportunity, and when they show signs of 'finishing' - then, stop :)
Incidentally, with this same daughter, we had thrush - such a bad case that pumped milk was very discolored and ugly from the bleeding and broken nipples and skin. This same friend encouraged and helped us along. The pain hurt to my toes, and certainly baby knew it - I'd clamp on a wash cloth before allowing her to latch on... and had to have help with that - couldn't even look at her doing so. This same consultant/friend encouraged that the milk was far more precious than the 'bit of blood' she'd encounter - and, well, we plunged through. I believe the nursing kept the milk moving - and kept the healing happening. (I did have to use a med, too).
Anyway, bottom line is, you are so committed to doing this! Try the nighttimes or naptimes - try 'filling her mouth' - and maybe soft music, television, whatever in the background as a distraction... a book read aloud - ?
Good luck to you and baby!
Get some help from your local La Leche League asap.Also, go to Dr Sears site askdrsears.com and see his advice. He has never failed me!
I had a time when my oldest bit me. I softly flicked her on the check and said no firmly. It never happened again. You can also, press her head/face into your breast which will trigger her to let go if she is hanging on.
Kudos to you for nursing! Keep it up, this will pass. Don't give up, this is such a short opportunity for both of you.
Take care and god bless,
J.
Have you tried using a nipple shield? It is a silicone barrier you place over your nipple. It has an artificial nipple that slips over yours with holes in the end for her to get milk. It would maybe ease the transition back to your nipple by her still nursing. If she bit, it wouldn't be as painful and it may just be enough to get you through the next set of teeth emerging! I used it with my biting son as well. I think it made us both more relaxed about getting bit/punished and soon we were back to nursing like before. I would also encourage her not to bite the bottle nipple either otherwise she associates feeding/nipples with teething. Good luck! You have done a great job making it 6 months!
Oh, no! Don't just give up! It sounds a lot like what some call a "nursing strike". So I think it's pretty common. I know that it is common enough that I have had at least two friends go through it. I remember one saying that she had a real breakthrough when she tried nursing in a nice warm bath. Another said that it took quite a while of consistent, calm, patient trying. I guess she had to convince the baby that it really was okay by staying calm as she kept trying. She first got the baby to nurse when he was really tired and needed to nurse to sleep. There was a lot of crying involved as she held out waiting and trying, but eventually they got back on track. If you have access to a LaLeche leader you could find a lot of help there.
Does she sleep through the night? This might not be the ideal solution, especially if you've already got her sleeping through the night, but you might want to consider nighttime nursing as a solution. When my daughter (just had her 1st birthday) was this age, she got her first teeth and started biting as well. It was terrible; I was bruised and bleeding and very upset. But I also didn't want to stop nursing (plus she'd never accepted a bottle of expressed milk so it would have been really hard to stop). I found, like you, that she was less likely to bite or to get anxious about biting if she was really tired. So for us, I managed to look forward to the naptime, bedtime, and middle-of-the-night nursing as a way to get back in sync. So if she's still nursing at night (or if you're okay with starting that up again), that might be something to try. I found that we were both so relaxed that she was less likely to bite and I was less likely to tense up and expect it. That improvement seemed to carry over to daytime nursing. And then in a relatively short time, she stopped the biting altogether.
Now she just had her first birthday and we're still successfully nursing. She's in no hurry to stop and neither am I. I'm really glad we got through that. Good luck!
