FYI – I am going to get real with breastfeeding in this post. It’s not for everyone.

One of the things I have learned with Little Man is that when he has a new tooth coming in, he wants to bite EVERYTHING. When I say everything, I mean everything: couch, chair, my shoulder/knee/toes/fingers/cheek/etc., his toys, me. What he does not like to bite: any of the cold and/or hard teething toys I’ve got for him. We’ve tried apples, grapes, carrots, and the like. Little Man is finicky, and will love something today, but hate it tomorrow and the next.

It is getting frustrating, especially because I am still breastfeeding. He used to be good, before he had teeth. He’s now got 6 teeth, and his two bottom ones just came in and, boy are they sharp! He used to just lightly scrape his teeth along the nipple, and smile and giggle. I just say “No biting,” and we stop feeding. Now that he’s got more teeth, and is teething again, the biting is getting bad. He has been leaving indentations and slightly drawing blood. We are not at a nursing strike, thankfully, and I’m not ready to throw in the towel either.

His latest stunt was to clamp down, locking his jaw so I could not get a finger in to unlatch him, and dragging his teeth along the nipple. I did yell at this one, and Little Man just grinned at me, thinking it was hilarious. The damage was done though: I lost a lot of skin on the bottom of a nipple. I put myself away, and then just cuddled him up close and tight and rocked him to sleep. Once he was out, I grabbed an ice pack and shoved it in my bra, with the nursing pad in between. It freaking hurts, man! We will NOT be nursing from that side for a bit now, to allow it to heal. Hand expression it is going forward!

Any other nursing mummys out there? How do you handle biting? We’ve made it almost 15 months on this journey; I’m hoping to make it to 2 years!