Hey mommas, did your breastfed baby ever bite you during feeding? I know my boy did, and it could happen for many different reasons, you can also stop baby from biting too! Babies may bite while breastfeeding because they can be trying to further stimulate breast to trigger a let down, may be playing, or out of frustration, or teething. You can stop them from biting, its not the greatest feeling, and depending on how hard they bite down, it can be extremely painful of even lead to nipple damage. You can break the seal by inserting pinky in corner of lip to break seal, and gradually get baby to gape mouth open and remove breast. Once breast is removed you kindly but sternly tell baby no biting mommy, thats not nice, and then reinsert breast again. If it continues repeat the first step again, and you can wait a few minutes for baby to show hunger cues again, and thats when you start breastfeeding again. From my experience that is what worked for me, my son was a biter, he’d bite when hungry, during teething, out of spite for whatever reason at that time. I quickly refuted his biting, and he stopped in no time. I’d imagine because he was heavily breastfed, I’m his number one food source, so he got the hint or process, if he bites, I remove my breast which is ultimately his food source, and he would be hungry if he didn’t stop biting. Not all breastfeeding babies bite, I think it depends a lot of your babies personality, age, teething, or other factors. Babies may even bite when experiencing discomfort from possible colds, flu, or infection i.e ear infection. Eat infections can cause sharp achy pains, and I’d imagine when baby bites down, it relieves some of that pressure and pain in ear canal. Although biting can be painful or lead to unfortunate events, we can look at it as baby trying to communicate, “I'm uncomfortable or feeling discomfort and the only way I can communicate with momma is to make her feel some discomfort or pain too.” Now not that babies are thinking on that level, but in essence that how it goes biting is a form of communication as well, we as nursing mommas just have to learn how to respond to it and maybe differentiate the types of bites if possible. Of course we as parents when experiencing biting nurslings, we will or can learn to figure out what different bites mean if we pay attention to our babies biting patterns while nursing, this is if your baby bites because remember NOT all NURSLINGS are BITERS! So momma did you little one bite you during nursing sessions? How did you as a nursing duo overcome biting? 

For more information and resources visit links below:

https://www.medela.us/breastfeeding/articles/4-reasons-babies-bite-while-breastfeeding

https://llli.org/breastfeeding-info/biting/