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Our 10-month-old is teething. ON ME. She wants to gnaw, chomp, and tear at my skin — my arm, neck, or of course the worst target, MY NIPPLE. And man, it hurts! These aren’t little love nibbles. These are deep, powerful bites that leave marks. Sound familiar? Today, I’ll give you some quick info on babies who bite, and by “babies” I mean up to the age of 12-15 months.

Here are some quick tips:

Ignore and Distract. I know it hurts like hell, but any sort of reaction makes a repeat bite more likely. Your baby loves to learn new ways to impact his world, and Making Mom Shout And Yelp sure ranks high up there in “impacting his world”. Detach him, take a deep breath, and move on.

Offer Teething Relief. Frozen wet, clean washcloths, teething rings or whatever your pediatrician recommends for pain relief should be your first consideration. Biting is often due to his erupting teeth bugging him. Biting feels good — that’s why he does it. At this age, he can’t help himself.

Offer food or milk — or don’t. Sometimes biting occurs because your baby is hungry. Other times, it’s because he’s done with eating (or nursing) and getting bored. If the biting keeps up, change tactics to one of the others listed here.

DON’T lecture, pretend that you’re hurt, or punish (all tactics found on other online parenting sites). Those tactics cannot work with a baby of this age, given his stage of cognitive development. You’ll only end up confusing and upsetting him — or reinforcing the problem!

I’ve written about aggression in young children, and if you’re interested (or just plain sore from those sharp little teeth digging into your skin), go ahead and check out this post after you read this one for some more insight into the problem.

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

It’s hard to believe, but 6 weeks ago I was in agony, being awakened 6 or 7 times a night by a 7-month-old baby who seemed desperate to nurse each and every hour over night. I was at DefCon 7, or 8, or 47, or whatever the highest possible number might be for Maternal Sleep Deprivation. Worse, this is our 4th baby. My fantasies of finally getting a baby who was a good sleeper were shot to hell, and I was MAD.

Going the “babywearing” route — responding to every need — wasn’t working — it was making things worse. So I undertook the most rigorous “Sleep Training” program I’ve tried yet. And it worked.

Now, I’m not advocating that you try Sleep Training — and by that, I mean some variation on the “Let Them Cry Longer Than You Normally Would” theme. No, please don’t take this as something I’m necessarily advising you to do. Just hear me out for a minute:

Some babies do very well with “babywearing” and co-sleeping. Mine don’t. They either get all aggravated with the extra body contact — they want to be “free” — or think sleeping with Mommy and Daddy means fun playtime all night long. It seems they want to sleep in their cribs, because they’re wonderfully well-adjusted (and much more well-rested when they finally “get it”), but they need help in “getting it”.

So I used my Shrink’s Crystal Ball and devised a perfect sleep plan just for her that worked immediately. Hah! I wish. No, seriously, I thought about her specific age (7 months), her temperament (loud and excitable, but resilient and forgiving), and our family’s needs (3 older kids who need to have a reasonably quiet house at night plus 2 working parents), and went from there. It was 6-ish weeks, with 2 or 3 of them being fairly challenging, but I am happy to say that the plan has worked fabulously well. Miss Nighttime Partier is now sleeping 10-11 hours at night.

This combination: Your baby’s age, temperament, plus your family’s needs, all get put into my formula for improving any parenting problem with your baby — not just sleep. It’s a personalized approach that goes way beyond a checklist that you might find in a parenting magazine. It’s developed for you and your family. That’s the basis for my Parent Coaching service that I’m preparing to offer online, and I’m really excited to be able to help families far beyond my little island home out here in the Pacific.

So stay tuned for more details on BabyShrink Parent Coaching, and in the meantime, comment or email me for more specifics on your little nighttime partier.

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

I had an amazing conversation with one of the world’s foremost infant researchers last week, Dr. Joseph Campos. He’s at Berkeley, where he’s churned out tons of scientifically rigorous studies about the developmental changes in infancy. He’s come up with some transformative ideas about babies, the upshot of one being that crawling causes your baby to become your little social partner, for the first time. No longer just a passive lump in the social world, now she’s able to start to understand some of what’s going on inside your mind. She understands how important you are to her, and seeks your emotional support, presence and encouragement as she starts to scoot out into the world under her own power. She now gets reassurance from your presence and your emotions — your facial expressions and body language — not just from physically holding her.

The flip side of this is that it also causes clinginess, fussiness, and sleep problems — some of the major complaints of parents at this stage. Turns out, crawling out into the wide world is fascinating — and terrifying. Your little adventurer gets it now — that as much as she wants to venture out on her own, she desperately needs you, and is panicked that she’ll lose you somewhere along the way. As Dr. Campos said to me, the baby’s drive for independence is equally matched by her fear of it.

So to you fellow parents of 9 to 12-month-old babies out there: I know it can be a challenging, difficult stage. Your little bug seems content to scramble around the house one minute, then wails in panic the next. What used to be stable sleep habits are now in a shambles. Feeding –and nursing — has become an unpredictable struggle — and separations are exceptionally difficult. And forget diaper changes! What a wrestling match! Immmobility is the enemy to her now — being restrained in any way is bound to be a fight. High chairs, strollers and car seats are demon baby torture devices. They keep her from exploring her brave new world.

What to do? Re-think your daily tasks with this knowledge in mind. Everything will take a little longer, as your baby goes through this unpredictable (but temporary) stage. Some days she may need you constantly. But don’t worry — when you’ve finally reached the end of your rope with your little Clingon, she’ll start to feel “refueled”, and venture out again — allowing you to catch up on that laundry and email. And make sure you get some help with nighttime wakenings — you’ll need extra rest too, since you’re up again with a fussy baby — but don’t forget to reinforce the sleep routines that have worked well in the past. She’ll eventually remember what her job is, at night — and now that her memory is better, she can hold on to her internal image of you a bit longer, giving her some comfort, despite being away from you to sleep. Feel some reassurance knowing that the earlier — and stronger — your baby shows separation anxiety, the sooner it resolves. Lots of parental support and understanding help her get through this challenging — but remarkable — stage.

Dr. Campos was generous and encouraging in my BabyShrink book-writing project, and I had a blast geeking out with him, picking his brain about the amazing new developmental capacities in normal 9-month-old babies. What a great experience! Now, please excuse me — I’ve got a 9-month-old baby clinging to my leg.

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink