Karleen, has brought this up before, and I never did get anything posted, so here is my two bits' worth on it! It was a problem with Julia (adopted at six months, did not start nursing for five more months). She had started chewing on bottle nipples at some point, after I had gotten her bottlefeeding, and off of the gastrostomy. I had tried to discourage her from doing this, for more than one reason, including the hope that I would some day figure out how to get her nursing. She had done it less, but not stopped completely. Since she was SO easily upset (like most babies who have been through a great deal of trauma), I knew that, if I ever got her to take my breast, I would have to be prepared to stay calm if she bit me. Being startled and jumping, like when Thomas, who started nursing at two weeks old, bit me, was not an option! After I had finally gotten the idea of threading the supplementer tube through a bottle nipple, and gotten her feeding much like nursing, except with that directly over my breast, I started to talk to myself about what I felt was the inevitable biting that she would do, once we finally made it to the breast. I knew I had to be prepared to control my reaction. By the time she finally accepted the breast, she had 16 teeth, and she did bite me! However, I had learned to watch her carefully for it, so that I could be better prepared. When she did, I would confine my reaction to gritting my teeth, but remain calm, from what she could see! The first few times I ever got her to take my breast, I was afraid that if I interrupted her at all she may not take it back. After all I had been through to get her to that point, the fear of spoiling it all was enough to allow me to put up with a fair amount of pain! However, after she had been nursing well for a couple days I started to immediately put my finger in the side of her mouth and unlatch her, sit her up, and calmly say "No, no, Honey, you can't bite Mommy!", and then let her latch on again. It only took a few times doing this and she stopped biting, except for once in a great while. To sum it up, not all babies are going to react the same way, but I think there are two general rules for dealing with biting, for any mom who is teaching an older baby to nurse: discourage biting on bottle nipples, and be prepared to control her reaction, if the baby does bite her, especially if her baby has experienced alot of trauma. Hope that helps someone! Darillyn _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html