breastfeeding with teeth

[twiceadopt]

quick question.. baby's getting her first tooth. she's tried clamping down a couple of times when she's had enough milk.. i say "no!" quickly and take her off the boob. is this sufficient for training her not to bite? i know plenty of women breastfeed babies with teeth, so surely there's some good advice out there. Thanks in advance-

[mum2beagain]

Andi will have lots of good advice for you on this one.

Here's my experience;
Sam got his first tooth at 6 months quickly followed by another (both top front) and started biting, I removed him from the breast and said no straight away. That worked for a while.
Soon he had his bottom, two, gets a bit more painful when the bite down then LOL! but he was usually doing it when he had had his fill of milk so that wasn't too bad.
By 9 1/2 months he had 6 teeth and, the biting was getting worse, he was even biting me at the begining of a feed and he drew blood a few times so I quit.I was really dissapointed not to have made it to 12 months but persevered as long as I could!

[Me2mommy2b]

Andi, Andi, where are you?  I agree with mum2beagain.  Andi would be the person to answer this more accurately.  My milk dried up right when DD was getting her first tooth so I didn't get to experience all the biting.

[AndiJ78]

Oh my, 3 boys, lots of teeth, do I have more experience than I would like on this topic!! Jonathan got his first 2 teeth at 6 months, follow by two more at a time every few weeks.  T got his first 2 teeth at 4 mos, followed again by two more at a time every few weeks. CJ got his first 2 at 6 months, next two took a month, and so on. Jonathan bit when bored or not really hungry. I would try to feed him but if he was not looking to really eat, he would nip. I told him no, removed him from the breast, and put him down. T bit to bite I think. While I would notice he would follow the same pattern of biting when he wasn't really hungry, I also noticed he would bite in the middle of a feed and before i could react, he would resume nursing as if nothing had happened.

With CJ he really does only bite when distracted or full. Again, the best advice is to give them a no (try not to make a face when you do it, no matter how you look they think it is funny) remove them from the breast, and put them down. If they are really hungry, they will let you know and after a few runs through this they will get the hint that biting equals no food.

You will start to notice the "tells" when they are going to nip. The latch is light, they are fidgeting, there is a lot going on, etc. If you notice it, you may do a preemptive move and cut the session short and see the reaction.

It worked for me for all three. I just counted up all the months spent nursing all three kids and thus far I am at 41.5 months! It is insane to think about it. My nipples have been bitten, yanked, stretched beyond belief, pinched, scratched, spit up on, snotted on, bruised, bleeding, infected and yet I still look back on nursing as the highlight of my life. Masochistic mommy I am : )