More Biting

Well, Sasha's biting is back again. Not as bad as it was when Sasha first got her new teeth, but it is still driving me insane enough to consider switching to exclusively pumping for a while. You would think that I would get used to it. That I wouldn't feel like crying when it happens. It makes me so emotional and I don't quite understand my emotional response or why my emotional response is so intense. It's not just the pain, although trust me it hurts as bad as it sounds when an infant decides to clamp down on your nipple as hard as she can with brand new, never used sharp baby teeth. Maybe it's because I have to actually wrestle with my baby to get my nipple back? Maybe it's the sudden adrenaline rush, followed by having to supress my every natural response to kick the ass of whatever is hurting me because what is hurting me is an incredibly cute and sweet laughing baby? Maybe it's the graphic image I get in my head of my baby biting my nipple off and laughing about it. Or maybe it's just a remnant of ppd, of which I think I might still be suffering from a little bit. And frankly, I do feel a little violated. I know I'm wrong, but sometimes it feels like she's mocking me.
So now, our nursing sessions are sort of analogous to those old west stand-offs. You know, the duels in the street where the gunslingers face each other and wait until some signal to draw their weapons? They just stand there twitching, watching each other, waiting. I don't know if she's quite related to my yelping in pain to the times when she's bitten me, so perhaps she thinks I'm prone to randomly screaming and it makes her nervous. I think she's starting to make the connection: "When I bite mom, it makes her make really neat noises. Let's see that again!". I applaud her cleverness but her experimentation still hurts.
Okay, so I think that I can figure out a pattern. I know she never bites me when she's about to fall asleep, or when she's very hungry. I listen to her swallow out of habit so I can tell when she is done eating. Most of her bites occur right as she decides she is done eating. Otherwise, if I this gets worse again, I'll have to see about switching to pumping for all but her bedtime feedings.

I didn't have any original nursing goals in mind. I think my goal is for Sasha to never have to drink a drop of formula. I don't mind having to pump to accomplish that goal if I have to. It would be easier on us if we continued nursing. Once she turns a year old, we can start to gradually switch her to cow's milk, so I guess that means 5 more months of nursing or pumping. In that case, we're over half way there.