when nursing babies bite

  Now that the ferocious forest gerbil has six teeth, she’s been a lot more ferocious than usual.  Ferocious, and biting.  More specifically, she’s been biting when nursing.

   Which hurts.

  A lot.

  We will be relaxing and cuddling together when suddenly – she attacks!  I immediately cry out in pain and surprise.  

  And she laughs at me.

  This bothered me more than the biting.  

  “Why is she laughing when she causes me pain?” I asked her daddy.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” he lamented.

  “It seems so….sociopathic,” I whispered in horror.

  “Your suggesting our baby is a serial killer?”

  "I just mean that she seems to have no natural sense of right and wrong,” I said, still whispering, “What do we do?”

 
  “I think we just need to find the right method of discipline before we get too worried,” he advised, ever the voice of reason, "Aren't we supposed to teach her this stuff?"

  So we searched for that method; a method that would work for Evening and matched our parenting ideals.  

  “Stop nursing immediately.  Place baby in a safe place and leave the room for 30-60 seconds.  Babies learn very quickly what makes mummy go away,” suggested the La Leche League website.


  It was hard, and Evening found it very upsetting, but I began to feel the results immediately.  

   My nipples were much relieved, but more importantly, so was my heart.  Because I also discovered that most babies will laugh when mummy cries out after being bitten, and no, most babies are not, in fact, sociopaths.  

  They laugh because they are just beginning to learn about things like ‘cause and effect’ and they it quite delightful when they can make mummy cry out just by trying out their fancy new teeth.  

  Which is exactly why mummy should NEVER cry out when bitten. 

  Oops.

  But hey, finding out your beloved is not a sociopath is always a win, even though it makes you feel rather foolish and you realize that you’ve still got a lot to learn…