No, Mommy is not a teething toy...

So Little M has these four teeth. Two on top, two on the bottom, and they are the sharpest fangs I have ever seen in my life! (OK, really they are his four central incisors, but they're like little baby kitten claws, so cute until they sink into your skin and you realize how SHARP they are!)

And he wants to bite down on EVERYTHING. There are teeth marks on pretty much ALL of his toys, and probably on the crib too (which reminds me, I need to look into getting a plastic cover for the crib rails, I don't think oak has a high nutritional value...)

OK, back from my shopping trip, (and the phone call from the family, here's my shout out to Auntie Em, Grampy, and Little M's Uncle J, thanks for the call!) and it looks like I could make something that would match better with the baby decor if I just order some sheets or valances or something from Babies 'R Us. Or I might just look through the 20 or so crib sheets we ALREADY HAVE. OK, really, I mean it this time, tangent over.

Now, back to the biting Mommy problem...

The problem really is that if Little M is too wound up to settle in and get his milk on, he ends up playing. And for him it is LOADS of fun! He starts out nursing, then he uses those sharp frontal fangs to bite down HARD, then Mommy says either "NO!" or "OUCH!" or both and makes a face. Which he thinks is HILARIOUS! So he's smiling and giggling, and my only recourse is to put him back in the crib and leave the room. Which makes him cry.

Which I feel bad about for about 1/2 a second, until I'm keenly away of the pain I am now in, and I'm back to knowing this is the way to get him to stop. I wait until the crying STOPS, then go back into the room. Usually this is only a minute or two, but he's worked off a little energy, and sometimes he's ready to settle down and actually nurse.

Other nights we go through this two or three times, and on the nights when he is just clearly not going to settle down at all, I have to go downstairs and listen on the baby monitor for the, "MUM-MUM-MUM" cries. Those mean he's serious about being hungry now. Sometimes I go downstairs and he plays in the crib for 20 minutes before the "MUM-MUM-MUM", but he ends up there eventually.

I just wish I knew a way to tire him out more during the going upstairs and getting ready for bed part of the routine. I already make him climb up all 16 steps to get upstairs, then he crawls around the hallway the whole time I'm running the bath, is a baby treadmill my next step???

I guess playing until I see either yawning or the rubbing the eyes is just what we'll have to do in his room if I want to be able to breastfeed the next child. Or maybe that's Little M's plan to remain an only child...