Thursday, June 12, 2008
Kissing vs. Biting
Remember how excited I was when Abby started giving kisses? And how I was surprised that the open-mouthed, slobbery kisses didn't bother me at all? Well....they do now. It's not the slobber; it's the fact that when you add three upper teeth (plus the two bottom teeth) to an open-mouth kiss, you end up getting more of a bite. My daughter does not seem to be able to distinguish between a kiss and a bite (hmm, this could be related to her difficulty distinguishing between biting and sucking when nursing...). Although I love the affection she is showing when she gives me kisses, I am not enjoying the discomfort of little teeth digging into my cheek or neck. I'm pretty positive that she is not intending to bite, and is simply trying to give a kiss. So, I'm torn between thanking her for the kiss and teaching her that biting is not a good thing. But how do you get a 7-month-old to understand that the biting aspect is not okay without squashing her desire to give kisses? Maybe she'll just grow out of it as she gets more used to her upper teeth. Have any of you other moms dealt with this?
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4 comments:
Jake is hopefully just now exiting the biting stage. He didn't know what he was doing at first, he had just made the connection that there was a big reaction when he did it. We are awfully unconventional at our house, but to help him realize that he was afflicing pain, we did the following: look at him strait in the eyes, point to your teeth and say "sharp, owie" and then proceed to gently bite his finger or arm. Then say "Biting, no, no." and shake head. So he learned that he was hurting people and then just reserved biting to when peers (thankfully ususally just his brother) peeved him. Oh, well.
I am working on teaching Daniel not to bite skin. At this point, he rarely bites...occasionally I need to say, "Don't bite", and his response is to immediately pull away, w/o biting. I think it is important to work thing to work on, as you don't want it to become a habit. Other things we are working on with him are not rolling over when we change his diaper, and what not to touch in the living room, as he is now pulling up on things. Consistency is key!
Mandy does the same thing -- bite/kiss. I do a similar thing to Kelly's advice. I gently flick her cheek and say, "That hurts me. No biting." She is smart enough to know the difference now. I give her something to chew on and give her another kiss. They really need to bite stuff at this age, just not me! When I flick (really, really just to startle her, not hurt her), she doesn't cry, just looks puzzled and moves on. It also works for nursing biting.
Yup-flicking works! Coleson did that when he was younger (I think I have given you this advice before =) ) and just by being consistent with flicking him and saying "no biting" he was "fixed". He has an unending desire to give me and others kisses-so dont worry about that. She is smarter than you think and will pick up on the fact you are disciplining her while she bites not kissing you. It's the very early stage of teaching and rearing--enjoy!! =) It's starts much sooner than most parents realize.
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