Emma Howard: Hello! I am Emma Howard, and we are talking about breastfeeding here, on the Baby Channel, and with me Heather Welford from the NCT or a breastfeeding counselor and we have got four-and-a-half month old Ruby next to you with her mom Tara. Thanks for coming in.
Now you are happily breastfeeding, after bit of a shaky start, but you have got a bit of a problem now, haven't you? She is getting teeth.
Tara Wilkinson: I have yes, she has got. Her two bottom teeth have come through and she has now decided that it's quite fun to bite on to my nipple which is obviously --
Emma Howard: And that is very painful, isn't it?
Tara Wilkinson: Excruciating and I have been told that I shouldn't make sudden noises, because she might find that -- and think it's funny and keep on doing it. But I just want to know, what strategies I can use to --
Emma Howard: Are there strategies when the baby is beginning to bite?
Heather Welford: Yes, those little teeth are really sharp aren't they? If you felt them with your fingers, you would notice that.
Tara Wilkinson: Yes, yes.
Heather Welford: She won't do it for long. This is sometimes a temporary stage, the sensation for Ruby is different. She is just experimenting with the feeling of gnawing down. It's natural. If you find that it is painful, and most women don't. You are unlucky, but you are a bit unusual. It's not that common for it, to happen. But if it happens -- The next time it happens, gently take her off, break the suction by putting your finger in and just say, no, no biting.
Tara Wilkinson: Just in a calm voice.
Emma Howard: And at four-and-a-half month, is she able to make sense of you looking into her face and saying no?
Heather Welford: Yes, but not instantly. But if you do it every time she does it and repeatedly, she'll understand that in order to continue with the feed, she'll have to stop biting. She may just stop anyway without you doing that, we'll never be able to prove that it was your removing her and speaking to her would do it, because this is a stage that will pass.
Tara Wilkinson: Right.
Heather Welford: She is getting two lovely teeth at four-and-a-half months, which is unusual.
Emma Howard: So she has got them quite early. So you are unlucky in that respect, because we have to remind people that babies get their teeth at different stages, don't they? My son didn't have a tooth in his head till he was seven or eight months old.
Heather Welford: Some babies can be a year old. But babies don't need to use their teeth for feeding. Most women who would continue feeding babies with teeth and it never bothers them, and they don't even notice it.
Tara Wilkinson: So even when she gets more teeth, the top ones --
Heather Welford: It shouldn't hurt, you might then get a few little nips out.
Emma Howard: But that's not quite a worrying prospect?
Tara Wilkinson: Yes, because it does hurt when she has done a couple of times.
Emma Howard: And it could be quite a sharp sort of chuck, can't it?
Tara Wilkinson: Yeah, and tucks on it as.
Emma Howard: You would have to keep your finger to break that suction.
Heather Welford: Just watch for her doing that and the thing about not yelping is sensible advice, because you can give the baby a fright and then, she associated feeding with something that wasn't very pleasant and that it can sometimes mean that you have to sort of lower her back to the breast again. So just a clam response, if you can manage to think of that in time that will help.
Emma Howard: And talking of calm. We have seen Ruby, she is at a stage where she is such a confident feeder, she is quite sort of fidgety feeder as well, isn't she at times? Can we see you feed Ruby and we will if she'll do it in a settled way or she -- she is tired to feeding, haven't you Ruby? We have got lots of you today. Still she wants to feed. She just seems to quite excited, because her little legs are going, aren't they?
Heather Welford: She knows what's coming.
Emma Howard: And positioning Heather is everything, isn't it? Because Tara had a difficult time in the beginning, because her position wasn't right, and that was sorted out, by somebody coming to her house and talking to her. So that was looks like quite a nice natural transition.
Heather Welford: Ruby doesn't need to think about it anymore and not intolerance. She is got to be on the stage where this is some conscious thing that she has got to be working out each time.
Emma Howard: But it is conscious in the beginning, isn't it? So, I mean, for people who are watching you at the every stages of this, it's where you have to sort of think about the baby coming to you, don't you?
Heather Welford: Yeah, because both mother and baby are learning together. But after a while you get this nice communication. Ruby knows exactly what to do I expect sometimes she can be crying, and then you put her on, she suddenly stops crying, because she knows how to put her mouth and her tongue in a position.
Tara Wilkinson: She doesn't have to think about it and neither do I. But at the beginning it was very difficult. It was very sore and also the positioning was really important and you don't know, if you are doing it right, especially with your first one, I think.
Heather Welford: And you were looking at photographs, weren't you? But they are just not that helpful, are they?
Tara Wilkinson: No because, you are quite sore yourself and the first thing it says, sit down on upright. Well, I couldn't sit down, I was lying down, because I was quite sore. So from beginning, I was like oh! What position can I use?
Emma Howard: So nobody was writing a book for you?
Tara Wilkinson: No.
Emma Howard: Which is why it's fantastic to have somebody even come around to your house and look at both of you.
Heather Welford: That's right.
Emma Howard: And reposition.
Heather Welford: And she must have given you confidence that this was something that you would eventually learn.
Tara Wilkinson: Yes, well, she said I was doing it right, she just changed few little things and then, but also invited me to a breastfeeding support group that I now, go to even though everything is okay, but it's just really nice. I have made new friends through it.
Emma Howard: Because then you can give support to other people who are at the early stages of breastfeeding.
Tara Wilkinson: Exactly.
Heather Welford: That's great.
Emma Howard: Why is that Heather that in a way we don't take on this message that the baby learns as well. We'll know the mother has to learn to breastfeed, although there are lots of people think because it's natural, it will come automatically. But it's quite important to take on board this notion that the baby also has to learn about feeding from you.
Heather Welford: That's right, and sometimes circumstances surrounding the birth make that process a little bit slower and we can get very worried, because we know milk has got to get from A to B. And the baby is not latching on or if the baby falls asleep as soon as you put the baby to the breast, that can be really, really worrisome and it's great that Tara is now going to a support group with her confidence and her relaxed attitude to feeding and she'll show mothers who are not quite as far down the road, that it does get better. With the right help and a little bit of kindness to yourself and a little bit of patience things will fall into place.
Emma Howard: That's hard.
Heather Welford: It is.
Emma Howard: You have to trust yourself in those first few weeks, you just think you are doing and especially feeding another human being. I want to point out that; that wire is your microphone wire, isn't it?
Tara Wilkinson: Yes, it is.
Emma Howard: If somebody watching might be wondering, what that is. But that's our microphone wire. So you don't need one of those when you are feeding -- she is very happily feeding there. The important thing is to ask for help then, and to sort of see somebody go to them, then can come to you, so they can reposition you. You said that the lady, who came to your house, just sort of tweaked a few things?
Tara Wilkinson: Yes.
Emma Howard: But is that those little things you would say, Heather that make all the difference?
Heather Welford: It can be. When we are talking about the baby getting a good mouthful of breast, we are talking about -- Yeah, lovely big mouthful. We are talking about maybe a millimeter or so, and it really is as small as that.
Tara Wilkinson: It was, it was especially -- you could hardly see the change, but there obviously was the change.
Emma Howard: And how do you find some of those that maybe you were going to the baby more than, they are always saying make sure, the baby comes to you. If there's something that you --
Heather Welford: Bring the baby to the breast, don't try to post your nipple and as if you are posting a letter, right because it's going to hurt her.
Emma Howard: I know exactly what you mean when you say that.
Heather Welford: Oh! I mean the baby is half open, and I can get just get myself in, but waiting --
Tara Wilkinson: Because you are so anxious, the baby is crying that you just want to put them on straight to work.
Heather Welford: A calm baby with a nice wide open mouth and the baby comes on, and the baby will scoop a lot of breast into the mouth.
Emma Howard: Although, I think in those early days this is one of the hardest things to get your mind around and physically do is, that your new born has a small mouth and you often got these burgeoning bosoms with fresh milk, just coming in and it seems like a contradiction, a huge breast and a tiny little mouth.
Heather Welford: Yeah.
Emma Howard: So where do you put it?
Heather Welford: It can be, the breast seems bigger than the baby's head. How can it be, really? It looks really weird and feels weird until you get used to it. But the baby can still open really wide. That mouth might be small when it's closed, but when the baby opens wide, it's really as wide as a yawn. If you could imagine the baby is going to take a big bite of an apple or something like that, the breast can go into the dome -- where the dome of the palate makes a really nice gap, that's where the breast nipple is going, so that the nipple doesn't get compressed between the tongue and the heart palate, because that is going to really, really hurt.
But like Tara found, it can just be a little tweak that allows the baby to open wide and I bet you were encouraged just to wait for that moment.
Tara Wilkinson: Yes, she did, and there was another point, not to rush on and pity on her and wait, just that little extra second or so and I did that --
Emma Howard: That's a wonderful advice.
Tara Wilkinson: Yeah, it was a fantastic advice.
Emma Howard: Has she pulled out listening to that? Because look at the result. She is very happy and you are clearly enjoying it.
Tara Wilkinson: I am so glad that I pursued it and didn't give up and just kept going.
Heather Welford: Does it make you feel good to see, how lovely legs?
Emma Howard: Yes, this is all of the breast milk.
Tara Wilkinson: I was only saying to my husband last night, just amazing that I am feeding her and it's healthy for her and she is growing so well.
Emma Howard: So it's worth guessing through the pain, but I am looking for discussion, there's an awful lot of that in the beginning. But look at her, four-and-a-half month. You just got to worry about those teeth, now.
Tara Wilkinson: Yes.
Emma Howard: Thank you Tara and thank you Ruby. And of course, thank you Heather.
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