Teaching baby to be gentle - co-sleeping and breastfeeding

[duffers]

Hi Ladies,
Esme and I co sleep in the mornings but recently she has started scratching at my face and grabbing my nostrils and lips - ouch! If I turn away she cries and wants to continue. She does the same thing whilst breast feeding but gets cross if I hold her hand to stop her.

Obviously she is too young to understand that she hurts me and the word NO but I don't want this to become a game.

What do you do to teach your LOs to be gentle. Is it just repetition, repetition, repetition?

 

[hattiehippo]

You could try showing her how you want her to touch your face as well as continuing to move her hand away if she persists in hurting you.

Tom is just 6 months but when he tries to grab my face I take his hand and stroke my face with it softly while saying 'ah, gentle'. He does seem to have been touching it more carefully recently and always looks at me for my reaction when he does so maybe it's having an effect????

 

[celine]

I would agree with hattiehippo, Gabriel is still quite rough (ok we dont co sleep but we do bf - one year on friday!!) we have a cat and I have long hair so we rub the cat or our hair and say "ahh Mandy (cat) ahh" to show to stroke softly, we also did it with one of his large toys and he strokes that gently (we are still working on mommy though lol)

 

[twiggy56]

abigail can be rough with clawing when shes feeding, she grabs her bottle pretty aggressively and want to feed herself, I tend to keep her hands busy if she starts clawing at me...let her grasp my finger or give her hands something to feel, shes got a blanket with holes in it she likes to flex her fingers between.

Id suggest giving something to keep hands busy if its hurting you. Its probably too early for abigail to understand right now at 4 months so I just distract her until she can learn.

 

[colsy]

I've been removing LO's hand from my hair (he grabs handfuls of it, ouch!) and saying 'gently, gently', and he is I think starting to realise that the word 'gently' means just that. I've started using the same phrase when he's being rough with toys and books, and in the dreaded moments when he tries to grab another baby at swimming or playgroup, and again he sort of shows signs of understanding. Now, he doesn't always follow the instruction LOL, but he does look at me as if to say 'yeah, mum, I know'.

 

[Dream.A.Dream]

I'm the same as Twiggy, edward is the same but too young to understand so I go for distraction. He pinched the really thin skin under my eye the other day, I was in tears from the pain and he looked really upset bless him But it hurt so badly! xx

 

[Rebaby]

He pinched the really thin skin under my eye the other day

Argh! Toby did the same not long back and wow it's painful isn't it?!

I am doing a bit of a mixture of both- if he's breastfeeding and sleepy and reaching out to paw at/grab something i just wear baggy t shirts a lot now so let him grab at/rub/play with the excess material from them. If he's awake and "exploring" though i say "Aww, doggy/kitty/daddy's face- pet it nicely", and try and encourage him to do a gentle stroking motion with his hand. I don't know if i am doing the right thing, i just know that he is becoming a very nippy and grabby baby and it's started to extend to people's eyeballs, and other babies at groups we go to etc so i want to try and nip it in the bud (no pun intended! )