Disclaimer: Many people do not experience a “bad” phase of nursing. So don’t expect that nursing a toddler will be painful for you.. But if you DO experience it, take heart. Others have, too. And there are solutions.
Painful toddler nursing seems to be a hot topic recently. I’ve seen four or five threads on this in the breastfeeding forums that I frequent, and I’ve had several friends mention it as either an annoying phase that they’re hoping will pass, or as the reason that they weaned or are planning on weaning.
If you are experiencing painful toddler nursing and WANT to wean, I don’t blame you. There were a few times when, after nursing for a couple of minutes, I wanted to hand my toddler to my husband and go away for three days until he forgot that breasts existed. It wasn’t just painful the way nursing a newborn was. It felt ABUSIVE. I knew that my son didn’t mean anything by it, but it was painful and it was rough. It hurt, and it felt violating.
It’s very hard to find good advice and support on breastfeeding a newborn, because many women have their attempts sabotaged by medical professionals. As our child gets older, it becomes even more difficult to get any advice other than “Maybe it’s time to quit”. Very few women make it to the one year mark, and most of those never make it to see two years. This means that there’s a tremendous lack of women that can answer questions, offer solutions and support and tell you that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
I’m still nursing my 27 month old. He has a full mouth of teeth, and we got past the nipple twisting, the “I want to nurse but I want to watch this tennis game on TV while nursing”, the “I want to nurse but I want you to sit on THAT side of the couch and I want to sit on the OTHER side of the couch, and I expect your nipple to accommodate this request by becoming magically rubber-like. If it does not work this way, I will subject it to medieval torture techniques” thing. Oh and the “My child seems to be related to some family of creature that has razor-sharp teeth, and I’m afraid that I’m going to lose my nipple” thing. And the biting thing.. And.. Oh. I still have my nipples. In fact, my son nurses more comfortably for me now than he did for the first year of his life.
So what do you do?
A lot of the time it boils down to nursing manners. As with anything in your life, you need to set clear boundaries with your toddler. Hitting is not acceptable, biting while nursing is not allowed.. But also less aggressive behaviors such as nipple twiddling, pulling away while nursing, etc.
Some of these behaviors can be hard to break a child of, as the child learns that twiddling mom’s nipple is comforting and it brings her milk down quickly. Or the child might want to pull away from the nipple to see more of the world around him. Or some of the problems can even be purely physical. A tooth might feel like a razor-sharp protrusion that hurts even when your child is latched on perfectly.
If your child is biting: If your child is biting you can try several different things. I’m starting with the one that worked for me: Simply keep your pinky finger near your child’s mouth. When your child starts to bite down, jam your finger into the corner of his mouth between his back gums and break the bite and the latch. If your child bites three times, announce that nursing is “done for now” and “No biting mama, that hurts.” Try to stay as calm as possible. With my son anything that scared him would make him bite down harder. Anything that didn’t scare him would amuse him and he’d… you guessed it, bite down harder. Other techniques involve:
- Yelping loudly in pain. Be careful doing this if you have a sensitive child or one that is amused easily. A sensitive child might refuse to nurse again out of fear. A child that is amused by your yelp might bite you again to see the funny reaction.
- Pressing the baby’s face into your breast so that his nose is covered and air flow is temporarily cut off. Baby doesn’t like the sensation and generally stops biting and doesn’t do it again. Just don’t do it for too long because obviously you don’t want to smother your baby. With my son, doing this frightened him and he nearly took my nipple off, but other parents have had success with this method- my mom used it on me and I only ever bit her twice in the four and a half years of nursing.
- Flicking your baby’s nose hard enough to startle but not hard enough to hurt. My son was amused by this when I did it lightly, and scared by it when I did it more strongly. MAJOR fail. Lots of biting. I had to pry him off and he left toothmarks in my breast. But this method worked on my brother.
- Terminating the nursing session as soon as the baby bites down. Say “NO BITING MAMA! We will nurse when you’re ready to not bite.” Some versions of this involve putting the baby down, sort of like a mini time-out. This just resulted in my son wanting to nurse for comfort and blubbering into my breast, but it has worked for many and seems to be one of the more commonly recommended ways for dealing with the problem of biting.
If your child has a sharp tooth: If your child has a sharp tooth, it can cause a lot of pain. Sometimes you can have deja vu with flashbacks to the early days of nursing. Little teeth can come out with bumpy jagged edges that HURT! Treat it like the newborh phase. Focus on latch, vary positions and try to find one that hurts less, or at least vary positions so that the tooth doesn’t rub on the same spot all the time. Coat your nipple and areola with some lansinoh or another nursing cream. A tooth typically only causes pain for about 1-3 weeks and then once the tooth has fully emerged the razor-surface has worn down a bit and become more dull, and your child has adjusted his latch so that it doesn’t rub quite as much. I found that with my son the first tooth on the top was the worst. The bottom teeth didn’t hurt as much because my son’s tongue cushioned them. (Although he did have a short period of bad latch becuase his teeth irritated his tongue!), once he had two teeth on the top and two on the bottom, the rest of the teeth barely hurt at all. I was expecting the canines to hurt like crazy! Not even a little bit. 
- If your child is pulling back from the breast and stretching the breast painfully: Give them no where to pull to! Nurse them dangle-style so that your body is too close for them to push away. Nurse them up against the side of the couch so that they’re pushed into a corner and would have to push your entire body away in order to get the breast away. Nurse them football-hold with pillows supporting their back and head so that they can’t pull. Side-lay nurse and put pillows behind them so that they have no place to roll to. Lay on your back and have them nurse while sitting up, it makes it so that if they pull away too strongly it breaks the latch and they get frustrated. If they dig their little hands into your breast and lock their arms and push (Yeah, my son did that.) push their hands away, and tell them “No” the same as you would biting. It’s nursing manners. Three strikes, and we’ll nurse later. Explain “That hurts mommy”. If they’re nursing that way because they’re trying to see something, try to sit at an angle so that they can see whatever it is while they’re nursing. Otherwise reinforce what they CAN do with their hands while nursing. I encouraged my son to play gently with my hair, my earings, stroke my chin/face, point at my facial features so I could tell him the name of what it was, and stroke my collar bone area. He could also hold a truck and drive it across my collarbone area, or hold a blanket if he wanted. But he could NOT push away from me. That hurts mommy!
If your child is sucking so hard that it really feels like he’s sucking the marrow from your bones.. First check to make sure that he hasn’t over-latched. Make sure that his lips stay within your areola. If your toddler is taking in TOO MUCH breast tissue it can hurt even worse than if your toddler is taking in too little breast tissue or “nipple nursing”. I had to teach my son to latch shallowly on my left side because his mouth outgrew my areola in certain positions. This can result in the feeling that your breast tissue is being torn, and it actually can result in tears and bleeding! Ouch!
If it’s just a hard strong suck, this is somewhat normal. Toddlers become very efficient little suckers and sometimes it can be painful when they’re very hungry. Once your child is over a year old you can offer some solids before nursing. This usually slows the sucking down. If it doesn’t, demonstrate “gentle” and “hard” sucks on your child’s thumb. Say “GENTLE” and “OUCH!” and say “If you hurt mommy we can’t nurse now. Can you nurse gently?” Again, three strikes and the toddler is out and they can nurse again later.
If your child is nipple-twiddling the solution is much the same as the “pushing away”. Try to make it so that it CAN’T happen by keeping that side of your bra latched and pushing away any little hands that try to get under it. Hold your child’s hands, or even “swaddle to nurse”. Play hand-games, encourage your child to do the things that DO NOT hurt mommy. Buy a nursing necklace, let him play with a doll or a truck or a stuffed animal or blanket. Patiently insist that the child not twiddle, and practice three strikes.
Got a problem not covered here? We’d love to hear about your solution, or even just hear what the problem is. We might have experienced it, solved it, and forgotten about it. Or we might know someone who can get the answer for you.
thanks for the information! kyrie just got her first tooth, and it hurts at times. i will definitely follow your suggestions, thanks again!
What an awesome site! Great posts like this one help support moms to do the very best thing we can for our children, breastfeed.
I recently realized that I’ve nursed 4 kids thus far over 8 years of my life. My youngest is 3 and still nurses, though not regularly like a younger child. In most unwesternized cultures women nurse up to 4 years old on average and sadly here it hardly lasts a year. Breastfeeding does so much: nourishing, feeding, bonding, brain development, soothing, I always found it to be a convenient inexpensive way to solve virtually any problem with my baby. Now they are super smart, healthy, confident, caring young people ranging in age from 11 to 3. I attribute a lot of their smarts and personality strength to breastfeeding.
Another trick on the biting child is just to playfully hold his or her nose, they let go immediately. Also, usually by the time they are biting or playing with the other nip they can understand so explaining can help together with a correction of getting the babe off. They’re smart, they don’t want to lose it and should stop if they understand that. In my experience, when I was quick to correct the biting, it was very short-lived.
Good luck to all those nursing mamas out there giving our future the very best start on life! And thank you for this great blog.
Thanks for the great post! It’s always hard to find infomation about nursing toddlers – I love the book Mothering Your Nursing Toddler, but your post was a quick read of some of the major toddler nursing issues!
We have the issue with nipping because my daughter thinks it’s funny. She doesn’t actually bite but nips with he front teeth instead. I’ve figured out when she will normally do it now and a “don’t bite that hurts mommy” will usually elicit a chuckle but she tends to stop before it happens. I find that it’s when she’s nursing out of boredom more than anything.
I loved all the examples of the couch nursing…we do all of that here too – but I’ve manged to figure out ways around it similar to yours that work most of the time.
And the twiddling…GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. We still haven’t found a way around that , although in public I manage to keep her from it. At home she has to have the other nipple and the worst is actually when she catches the nipple with her razor sharp nail edges that I’m always trying to keep trimmed. But we keep working at it and eventually I know it will pass.
This is great! Alex is 10 months now and just getting that dreaded top tooth! This helped me for now and hopefully the future as well..
What about pain from hormone fluctuations before periods? I read somewhere that a calcium/magnesium supplement daily two weeks before ought to do the trick, though I forget and then end up being reminded that my period might show up by a few days of painful nursing. Not so fun. It also seems that she wants to nurse *more* during this time and it feels like she is sucking harder. Do milk supplies drop during this time as well?
My daughter is also twiddling and trying to tune the other nipple as if it’s a radio dial, or tucking her hand under my arm (on the opposite side that she is nursing on) and squeezing my breast to get another let-down. She is most persistent when she’s falling asleep and it makes me nuts. During the day it’s not a problem.
Yes, I must admit that at 20 months she *still* falls asleep while nursing and we haven’t been able to figure out an alternative. That’s a whole different issue…
I am still nursing my 20 month old son and he is a serial biter and has been for a long time. It gets worse with teething, but he does it even when he’s not teething and it is becoming a major problem. Ever since it first began (around 9 months old) I’ve tried to break him from it, but he doesn’t respond to anything. I’ve tried everything you listed at some point and it has no effect. Do you have any other suggestions? I would be very grateful!
I’m dealing with this now. My daughter is 16 months old and I’m ready to wean because it hurts so much. I think she has let her latch slip to where she is just latching onto the nipple, but it seems much harder to correct the latch of a toddler than a newborn. I’ve pulled the lanolin out again and trying to see if it will help, but there was blood inside my bra this morning. If something brushes against my breast, I gasp in pain. It’s frustrating because I believe in child led weaning. I’m just not sure that I’ll be able to stick this one out. I nursed my oldest until she was three. My son weaned at around 14 months while I was pregnant and my milk supply dwindled too much to keep his interest. I feel like you hit it on the head about not being able to find better advice than time to quit. I’d like to work through this because I know and believe all the benefits of extended breastfeeding, but I’m in definite fear of losing my nipples!
~Jenny~
Im so glad I found this page! Thanks for the tips… my 15 month old little dude has taken to biting hard… hard enough that tonight when i put my hand over my nipple to reel from the pain, i discovered a palm-full of blood. I don’t want to wean, but no one around me that i’ve ever met had breastfed at ALL, let alone past 1 year.
How does my wife stop the nipple twiddling during night time feedings? She is still nursing my daughter to sleep. Does she do three strikes and you get to stay up and party with mommy and daddy?
Have you guys ever heard of nursing necklaces? I have never needed one yet, although both my girls are twiddlers. My La Leche League leader has suggested the use of this little device as a means to distract the wayward hands from grabbing the unaccompanied nipple. They are simply lanyard type necklaces with small baby-safe objects on them. Large beads or little wooden toys. I have a couple of necklaces with leather string that would meet the requirements. We used to have a parrot and they always sold toys like this for the birds in the good parrot shops! Leather string, and larger blocks and assorted goodies that could be strung on to the leather… now that I think of it, they’d have been perfect for this purpose!
For nighttime, when I am going crazy from twiddling, I lie down next to my toddler on my side and offer the “top” side breast. I kind of squash the other one low enough to the mattress that it’s not readily accessible. Good luck!! Happily, it is a passing phase. My five-year old nursed until she was 4, and it seems like the twiddling lasted mostly while she was getting really good at physical activities such as walking, stair climbing and other things she wanted to practice. Try really wearing them out with a good walk before bed too (or let them go up and down the stairs a few times!).
P.S. I have never been able to “put my kids down” at a bedtime if it’s different than when my husband and I go to bed because we do nurse them to sleep. Rare is the occasion that they are more tired than we are! While my friends that don’t co-sleep and use separate rooms/cribs, etc. yack on and on about private time for mommy and daddy, we are just kind of used to it I guess. I think the wonderful years we have had this closeness as a family is well-worth the sacrifices we have made to co-sleep. My oldest daughter can’t wait until the baby is old enough to sleep with her. She started sleeping in a toddler bed in her room across the hall from us at 4, but we don’t use doors on our rooms so the upstairs is kind of like one big bedroom. I can see her from my own bed 10 feet away. I sleep securely knowing we are all together and if anything happened in the night, earthquakes, fire, break-ins, etc. my babies are all right there! I know that our co-sleeping will come to an end all too quickly, and will cherish my memories of having them all snuggle next to us as they drift into dreamland.
Nipple Twister — My 17 m dd is a nipple twister and I don’t know what to do. It makes sense that she is trying to get more milk but it does seem wrong, a little creepy. She’s having a rich fantasy life with the boob but I need some help. She is night nursing — all night long. She likes to have the nipple in her mouth for 75% of the night. I’ve tried to say boobie’s going to sleep…in the morning….but full on temper tantrum ensued. I was thinking that maybe in a few months she would be old enough to get the concept and it would make sense to her. Right now I don’t think she can consider it beyond her frustration.
Any advice? She naps on me and we co sleep. I have to go to sleep when she does. It’s the only way to get some rest. I’m pretty happy with the decision over all but I don’t have a life outside of her. I think I’m ok with this for the first 3 yrs (nursing, co-sleeping, staying home with her delaying going back to work). Can any of you elaborate why you are still nursing after 2 yrs and co-sleeping? I feel it is right for both of us but I haven’t articulated it.
I don’t have anyone to talk to about this b/c my mother never bf and has been trying to get dd her own room and to wean since 6months old. I would appreciate any input. Thanks in advance.
Sorry for the late response!
For me, it was an issue of “I want my son to know that sleep is a safe place.” and anything that involved screaming and crying or waking up alone and afraid.. Did not sit well with me. So I co-slept with my son until he started crawling away from me to sleep elsewhere on the bed, and then I knew he was ready to try sleeping in his own bed. Now he does. Through the night. He wakes up once in the morning, and we snuggle and nurse and sometimes fall back to sleep for another hour. He started this at 2 1/2.
He would (and still sometimes does) that “nurse all night” thing. What I discovered that helps me is to randomly pull away the nipple. About 1/3rd of the time he’ll be fine with that, the other 2/3rds he won’t be. So we latch him back on, and eventually he’s ready to sleep. The way that I do it is we’ll be side-laying and nursing. He’ll be facing me. I’ll unlatch him and quickly use his arms to turn him so that he’s facing away from me but his back will be touching me. If he’s sufficiently sleepy, he’ll just snuggle up to me and go to sleep. If he’s still facing me, he will want to keep nursing.
You might want to look at her sleep habits during the day. She may be sleeping too much during the day, not nursing enough during the day, or may be ready for some additional high-quality solids like avocado in her diet.
The nipple twisting.. I’d recommend three strikes and you’re out. During the night my son becomes a total nipple twister and I say “NO TOUCH.” and if he does it three times I stop nursing and he’ll cry for a minute, and we’ll nurse again. Sometimes I have to do that ten times in a row. But it does sink in. Sometimes all you have to do is show them “stroke mommy’s arm” or “pat mommy’s belly” instead, or “rub your head”. It helps to wear a bra and keep the other breast covered. I often place my hand firmly over the other nipple, and push my son’s hand away if it comes close. I remind him firmly in a no-nonsense voice “NO HANDS”