hi everyone. i’m melissa. welcome back tocloudmom. talking today about babies and biting, really tough thing for nursing moms. it hurts.man, does it hurt. and what can you do about it? um, question came in from, let me getyour name right here, kimmy amaya. here’s what she writes, "i have a question. i havea six month old son. and i’ve never had a problem with breastfeeding until now. he’sbegun to bite while feeding. he’ll suck and bite, suck and bite. it hurts a lot. ican’t get him to stop, and it’s so making breastfeeding very unpleasant. any tips?"so first of all, i do have a video about this, because it’s something i dealt with withalmost all of my babies. and i do have tips, so watch that video. but just to summarizeand to add a few more ideas, number one, i
don’t think that biting has anything todo with weaning. i know a lot of women think that. that as soon as a baby starts bitingit means that they’re tired of the breast and they’re ready to move to the bottle.i actually think it means that they’re teething, and that that has nothing to do with breastfeeding.and i think that you can work your way through biting, just like you can work your way throughall the other challenges that are involved in breastfeeding. the number one thing thati did that worked was first of all to just say no. i would try to soften the blow byinserting a finger into the baby’s mouth, a clean finger, perhaps your pinky betweenyour nipple and the baby’s mouth, taking the baby off. looking at baby square in theeyes and just saying, “no," with a serious
face. um, they just might get it. and keepthem off the breast for a little bit. then put them on again. they bite again? “no!"be very, very clear that it’s not something you’re going to accept. don’t just havethem keep biting and biting and biting. so that’s my first piece of advice. my secondpiece of advice is to try to get a sense of where your child, your baby is in their nursingsession. are they full and just playing around teething? that’s highly, highly possible.a lot of babies suck for comfort in the early days. and a lot of babies bite when they’vegotten enough food and they don’t need to be nursing anymore. in which case you cantake your baby off the breast and offer him a biting tool, such as something that’sa, you know, frozen or cold toy. some people
even use a very cold washcloth that’s beenplaced in ice water that the baby can nibble on or something like that. so anyway, thoseare some thoughts on biting and breastfeeding. hang in there. it’s so difficult. i knowa lot of people that gave up at this point, and it’s a very natural and normal thingto do. um, but i think you can work your way through it if you choose to do that. i really,really appreciate your writing in to cloudmom. best of luck with your beautiful, beautifulbaby, and let me know whether this was helpful. thanks for watching.
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