OooWWIIE!! Time to Stop Nursing!

Now is the time to implement a change in her behavior. It will take LESS than 3 days if you are completely consistent. There is no reason to wean an infant from breastmilk and place on inferior artificial milk substitutes simply because you got a bite from your infant.

Bite #1: Sternly say in a loud voice "No biting", remove her from the breast and place her down on the floor away from you. Wait 10 minutes and feed her again if she's interested. Do not pick her up right away if she is crying for you.

Bite #2: Sternly say in a loud voice "No biting", remove her from the breast and place her down on the floor away from you. Wait 25 minutes and feed her again if she's interested. Do not pick her up right away if she is crying for you.

Bite #3: Sternly say in a loud voice "No biting", remove her from the breast and place her down on the floor away from you. Do not feed her again for at least 2 hours. Do not pick her up right away if she is crying for you.

She will learn before or by day 3 that biting means no Mommy milk and will change her behavior accordingly. Also - very soon you will want to start teaching her nursing manners... such as the "Wait" - where you tell her to wait and then once you are able to be in the position to nurse, you do so. Also, "No shirt lifting" - self explanatory. I learned you cannot teach a young child/infant not to stroke your breasts because they are doing so for a few reasons: comfort, security and possessiveness. It's not harmful or sexual in nature, so isn't something you should find embarrassing.

You can just get her to stop biting by telling her "No" firmly and removing her from the breast immediately. No emotion, no anger, just "No", and break the suction with your finger in the side of her mouth (gently). Do it every time she bites and, trust me, she will realize that the consequences of it are "no more milk". it should only take a couple of times. The key is NOT to get angry or show emotion, make your response very matter-of-fact. Babes like seeing the reaction they get from their behavior, and if all she gets is no milk for 5 minutes, she will stop, I promise. I nursed my kids into toddlerhood, and they don't bite because they have teeth, they bite because they are trying out their new teeth, but they can be trained not to.

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Do you WANT to wean, or do you feel you need to wean because of the teeth?

I can't help you re. the early weaning. I nursed my son till he was 2.5 years old. There were some ouch moments, but if you can teach her not to bite and experiment with different holds, you might be able to keep going. If she is latching correctly, the teeth shouldn't be a problem.

If you really want to keep going, contact a lactation consultant to see if you can work around the teeth. Good luck!

You don't have to wean. My firstborn was a terrible biter (drew blood a couple times) and I taught him to stop. He got his first teeth at 4 months!

Remember that they can't bite and nurse at the same time. They can stop nursing and bite, however! You can try cutting her off when she's no longer nursing hard (for food) and instead just doing comfort nursing. That's usually when they start playing around and bite.

In my son's case, the gentle strategies didn't work. So we developed a much harsher but very simple strategy. Baby bites mama. Mama goes away. Baby was placed in a safe location and I walked away. He screamed and screamed and no one responded. (This was the *only* time he was not immediately comforted when he was in distress.)

I remember once my husband walked into the bedroom. Baby was screaming hysterically on the bed. Mama was sitting at the desk, checking e-mail, ignoring the baby. Daddy looked at his son. "You bit the mama again, didn't you? You're in the doghouse, dude!"

The last couple of times he bit me, he bit lightly, I squealed and he looked at me with this horrified "Oh no! I forgot! I'm so sorry!" look in his eyes. Then he stopped biting completely. Babies are clever little critters.

My daughter nipped me once, I squealed, and she never did it again.

Good luck!

I don't think this warrants you stopping nursing. So here's some hope.

When my daughter was 7 months old, I was still fighting a terrible, terrible breast infection which made nursing absolutely excruciating. It took 4 months to get rid of it, so many antibiotics I just get sick thinking about it...but I stuck with it, and I'm glad I did.

Now, she's 17 months old and I am still nursing. She's a slow teether...was 13 months before she got any...but now she's starting to get all kinds of teeth. I broke the biting habit before it hurt too bad...because she didn't have any teeth when she started biting (but yes, clenching gums can really hurt, too!) Occasionally she still bites, but it's an accident when she does it...usually, she's just fallen asleep on the breast.

When she bites, immediately remove her (gently) from the breast and give her a firm no. Wait a minute, put her back on...if she does it again, end the session. She will learn very quickly not to bite the breast that feeds her. To break her grip on you, insert your finger into the side of her mouth and gently pry open her jaw from the side.

Why switch to formula now? You only have five months to go before you can give her milk...and it will be so much better for her if you stick with it. I wish you the best!

You can teach her to stop biting. Say No Biting! and put her down for a few minutes and when you nurse again, tell her gentle and praise her when she is. My DD had to learn to adjust her latch with all her teeth but we nursed til she was 2.5.

When she bites, pull her into your breast so her nose is covered ,she will let go because she can't breath. Both my sons bit, once each. I did this, pulled htem into my breast (yes, its hard to not yelp and yank them off!) but they both got scared, coudln't breath because their nose was in my breast and they let go.

This is no reason to wean.

I weaned my first at 11 1/2 months when he seemed completely unable to nurse without biting, and it was really difficult for me. I felt awful and putting him down at night made me so sad. I even gave him a bottle once or twice, although he was pretty much off bottles by then and taking cow's milk fine during the day. I think it was harder on me than him, but it took a few nights of lots of snuggles, holding him while he drank something, then putting him down. With my second I went past 13 months and many, many teeth and it was much better. I wish I'd pushed through with my first.

So, while I agree 100% with everyone encouraging you to keep nursing because you really can and it is so much better, I would say if you choose to wean early consider exclusively pumping since that is healthier and cheaper than formula. If not, use it as an opportunity to really introduce a sippy cup at meals since you're already changing her feeding. This can be a confusing transition for a baby at this point when she's probably getting ready for more solids, learning to use a cup, possibly starting to feed herself a few things, and then being weaned might throw her off. You will also get engorged, so pumping a small amount will help, but you will both me miserable if you wean suddenly and completely. You might find that she "pays more attention" certain times (like before a nap when she's sleepy) and nurses rather than chews. Those are the times when you might decide it is not worth it to stop and you can follow all the great advice on here to help her stop biting. Sudden weaning is not fun or pretty, but there seems little reason to wean gradually if the whole problem is the teeth. It would probably be easier to teach her to stop biting. Good luck!