babyshrink.com

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

When I heard from Lisa Fields, a writer for Pregnancy magazine doing a story on “Nursing Must-Haves”, I was afraid that we were about to see yet another story on how blissful it is for everyone to breastfeed their babies. As I’ve said here before, it’s surprisingly difficult for many moms to nurse their babies — moms who try EVERYTHING and still can’t do it, despite every single effort to make it work. We hear from these moms here a lot, and they suffer unnecessary guilt over the difficulties they encounter.

But Lisa was interested in including a quote from me in which I at least am able to mention the issue of guilt and the pressure moms experience to “get it right”.

It’s also exciting for me as I embark on my quest to make important — and useful — parenting information more available. Parenting babies and young children can be difficult, and our generation of parents has to sort through a bunch of inaccuracies and propaganda about child development in the quest to be the best parents we can be. Conflicting messages about breastfeeding, potty training, discipline, TV, and other “hot button” issues make it stressful to feel good about making parenting decisions. I’ve done a lot of work to sort through the garbage and provide you with the most essential and helpful parenting information I can — information that’s vetted directly by me, a psychologist and child development expert, and mom to four young children. To that end, I’m happy to announce that I’m also being used as an expert source in upcoming issues of Parents and American Baby magazines, as well. I’m commenting on some of the most common problems we, as parents, face with our young ones — and suggest what I hope are helpful ideas to make your life simpler and more satisfying, as parents.

Thanks to Lisa for giving me the opportunity to start to reach a wider audience, and to you for your ongoing support! You can pick up the June/July issue of Pregnancy in Target, and most bookstores and newsstands. (I’m on page 60.)

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

So I’m still huge, and not yet in labor. Luckily the doctor has caved and agreed to schedule an induction for 10/19, if I haven’t delivered by then. But in the meantime I’m looking for anything to take my mind off the discomforts and anxieties of imminent labor. Reader Lisa made my day with this email:

Dear Dr. Heather,

I was googling the meaning of the term “mainstream parenting” and ran across your site. I read a lot of articles on BabyShrink, including one by the name of:

The “Good-Enough Mother”: Are Breasts Required?

This particular article made me feel choked up and teary-eyed as the mother of three boys. I experienced so close to the original poster’s experience, that it was emotional for me to read about. My second son ended up in the hospital with failure to thrive because I did not know I had under-developed breasts, and the pressure to breastfeed was tremendous. It was as though if I didn’t breastfeed I was not a good mother — end of story.

Now don’t get me wrong – I think breastfeeding is the most natural and wonderful way to care for a child that there could possibly be, but I have struggled against huge odds to get people to understand that there are those of us out here who simply CANNOT breastfeed… it’s not that we chose this option.

I have since had my third son two months ago and planned right off not to fully breastfeed and just give him whatever little bit I could make, and the rest of his meals would be formula. This was the best choice I could have made. Taking the pressure off myself allowed me to make a little bit more milk, and I have totally enjoyed the breastfeeding this time around without feeling like it was forced upon me. (When I say a little.. I mean that I made about 1/3-1/2 oz of milk between both breasts, which increased to 1/2-1 full oz now.)

My close friends and I have always felt that there is no completely right way to do this job of mothering. It’s very dependent on the individual child and his or her needs as a person. Reading your site only backed us up on what we believe and I shared it with my closest friend tonight. I have nothing against the AP crowd except that there are those extremists that ruin it’s reputation. The ridicule and nastiness they can dish out is in a whole category by itself. I’m just grateful that there are those out there with credentials like you who see that there is good in several parenting approaches, and your philosophies closely resemble my own.

So this is basically a kudos to you, Dr. Heather.

—- Lisa
Utah Mother of 3

Here’s my response to Lisa:

Hi Lisa,

There are so many moms like you out there who feel this way.

I keep reminding myself that the WHOLE process of pregnancy, labor, delivery, and indeed parenting itself is an ongoing process. Trying to decide what is best for you, your child, and your family, from day to day, is what it’s all about — not following some kind of idealistic dogma about what is “best”. In that way, we model to our children that we create solutions that are best for all of us — not just based on something that someone else said was supposedly correct for everyone. We can (and should be) flexible, for the good of the kids and our families.

I am so glad you are having a nice experience this time around and trusting yourself. Enjoy and thanks again!!

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink