8 month old biting mommy

[ladykatya]

HELP!  My 8 month old bites me and ONLY me!  Today he bit my nipple through my shirt (I don't breast feed anymore!) while I was rocking him to sleep.  I put him on the floor and told him that we do not bite.  Not more than 30 minutes later, he crawled up to me, pulled himself up with my pants and bit my knee.  I put his bottom on the floor and told him again that we do not bite.  

This has been going on for the past week or so.  Once again, it is only me, the stay at home mom.  He'll bite when we play, when I'm on the phone, when I'm holding him, and when I'm putting him down to sleep.  Once he even bit me while I put his jacket on to go outside!

This is becoming very painful both emotionally (why is it only me!) and physically - the child has NINE teeth!

Help me!!

Sincerely,

Melissa St. Michaels

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

When this occurs, immediately place your son in his crib or playpen and say, as you have been, "No biting." If you are consistent, even rigid, in this response, he will stop this. Remember not to take this personally. He has no capacity to empathize and he does not know about the impact of what he is doing.

[ladykatya]

I wanted to add that this has not been going on in conjunction with previous teething.  Also that I only breastfed for 3 weeks...

Thank you so much for this service!  I'm really beating myself up about this and hope you can give me some advice!

[justme§thedog]

I don't really have an answer for you, just some reassurance that he's probably biting you because you're 'mommy', his primary care-giver, and he feels most secure with you.  Most kids I know have gone through a 'biting' stage and I can't really advise on what to do.  I was the only one I knew who went by the books and set firm limits or used 'time-out' to curb the biting - until he nearly got kicked out of day-care because he started biting the other kids when he was frustrated. I'm sorry to say I went with what all the mom's in my area had been telling me, and I bit him back (not hard though). I know it's not the condoned action (and I won't say it's the thing to do either), but after that, he never bit again. Anyway, the point is not to assume any anger or anything else directed at you; more than anything, he's secure enough to explore these behaviours with you.