Why Do Babies Hit While Nursing? 6 Common Reasons

Do you find your baby tugging, wiggling, pinching, pulling, fidgeting, or even hitting during nursing sessions? Has your calm, peaceful nursing newborn turned into a seemingly aggressive, active older baby during breastfeeding sessions? Surprisingly, these behaviors are actually fairly common for breastfeeding infants - and here’s why. 
Even though this behavior might strike parents as being overly aggressive and even mean-spirited, nursing mothers shouldn’t take this behavior personally. Hitting and flailing during nursing is simply a developmental phase of infancy. Babies flail, hit, and smack during nursing sessions for a variety of reasons.

Why babies hit while breastfeeding: the short answer

Hitting and swatting during feeds are common, and they rarely mean anything is wrong. Usually one of these is going on:

• Your baby can't fully control their arms yet. In the first weeks, a lot of arm movement isn't on purpose.
• Your milk is coming too fast, or slowing down. Babies who struggle with a fast letdown often get restless and pull on and off the breast.
• Your baby is distracted. Some babies get much more distractible at the breast from around 4 months.
• Your baby is exploring their hands, practicing a new movement, or seeing how you react.
• Your baby is hungry, or finished. The CDC lists clenched hands as an early hunger cue and relaxed hands as a sign your baby is full.

For most babies it's a phase, and it fades as their coordination improves.

Your baby needs attention.

Your baby might hit during a nursing session simply to get your attention. In the age of modern technology, nursing mothers often seek to multitask while they breastfeed their infants, either through scrolling through their social media, watching TV, listening to an audiobook, or talking on the phone. Your baby craves your attention at all times! Even though your sweet little one might spend a lot of effort concentrating on latching and sucking, she still wants to know that you’re paying attention to her. If you find your baby swiping your phone out of your hands, or smacking your chest as you’re trying to talk on the phone, try eliminating distractions during the next feed and concentrate on watching your little one eat. This may help your little one feel more calm, secure, and relaxed! 

Your baby is exhibiting a reflex. 

In the first few weeks, your baby can't control many of their movements. By about 2 months, babies often wave their arms more when they're excited. The startle reflex, when a baby throws their arms out at a loud noise or a feeling of falling, is usually gone by around 3 months. That's also when many babies start swiping at things just out of reach.

So in a young baby, a smack during a feed is often an arm that hasn't figured out where it's going. In an older baby, it's less likely to be a reflex and more likely to be one of the reasons below. Either way, those aimless swings are how reaching and grabbing get started.

Your baby is enjoying a repetitive motion. 

Anyone who has spent significant time around a baby quickly observes that babies thrive on repetition. If your baby is hitting you at repeated intervals during nursing sessions, she might just be enjoying a simple repetitive behavior. Repeating an action over and over demonstrates a significant development in your child’s brain. She is practicing a particular motion, and in time, that motion will give way to more productive (and less painful!) motions such as reaching, pulling, grabbing and grasping. 

Your baby is seeking to elicit a reaction. 

If you react to your baby’s hitting by flinching, scolding, laughing, or simply looking at your baby, he might begin to repeat the hitting motion more often! Babies love to understand cause-and-effect relationships, and what better person to test their theories out than on mama? If you have a strong reaction, whether positive or negative, to your baby’s hitting behavior, he’ll realize that he will likely receive a response every time he does the behavior. This is actually a big step in your baby’s social and cognitive development - which might as well be celebrated! 

Your baby is discovering her hands and arms. 

When a baby is born, she probably doesn’t understand that her arms and hands are attached to her body and that she can control them. As babies grow and develop physically and cognitively, they soon learn that they have a certain degree of control over their bodily movements. Some of the first parts of the body babies take interest in are their hands and arms. Babies learn to grasp, pull, and reach for objects within their eyesight range. If your one-peaceful baby suddenly begins to slap you during nursing sessions, she may have discovered her control over her arms and is practicing using them! If this is the case, your baby might be placated by offering a stuffed animal, rattle, or blanket to hold and play with during each nursing session. 

Your milk is flowing fast, or slowing down.

With a forceful letdown, babies may cough, sputter, gulp, arch away or pull on and off the breast, and a frustrated swat can be part of that. If the fussing happens mostly as your milk lets down, try a laid-back position, tummy to tummy, with your baby's head higher than their bottom.

Babies also use their hands to get milk moving. In a small study of newborns at their first feed, massage-like hand movements on the breast were followed by a rise in the mother's oxytocin, the hormone behind letdown. Some of that patting and kneading, especially as the flow slows, may just be part of how your baby feeds.

If most feeds feel like a struggle, a lactation consultant can check your baby's latch and your milk flow.

If the hitting hurts, give those busy hands something else to hold, like a soft toy, a burp cloth or your finger. A dark, quiet room can help a distractible baby settle. You don't need to discipline a young baby for this. They aren't trying to hurt you.

Our guide to why babies hit and pinch when nursing has step-by-step ways to redirect it, including nursing necklaces, teething relief and how to pause a feed calmly.

Talk to a lactation consultant, doctor or nurse if your nipples are cracked or damaged, or if breastfeeding pain doesn't improve over the first 1 to 2 weeks.

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Parenting is awesome. Sleep is overrated. Every day is an adventure.