14 out of 14 people (100%) think this is worth doing.
(What is RSS?)my daughter weaned at 25 months due to my second pregnancy. i don’t think that she would’ve stopped nursing at that age had i not been pregnant and uncomfortable. at first i was very much looking forward to tandem nursing, but the lack of supply and discomfort became too much for me to deal with. i felt some real sadness, seeing our nursing relationship come to an end, but i’m ultimately happy that we had that bond for the time we did.
I feel horrible for quitting. At first I was glad but then recently I started hating that I quit. I quit because his dad and I were separating and I knew he would be doing overnights with his dad. I could have just breastfed him every other day, but I quit totally. He didn’t seem to notice, and I still did it for over 19 months. I think I read that only 4% of children still nursed at 18 months.
Lately the feedings are only once or twice. Maybe once a week I will feed him 3 times in a day. We always do a morning feeding, and sometimes that’s all he gets for the whole day. He is so distracted in the afternoon that the afternoon feeding takes longer and he loses interest fast.
No more nighttime feedings! I nurse him 2X a day if I am working that day, and about 3X if I am off.
I am thinking of dropping the nighttime feeding.
I can nurse him morning and afternoon. It’s so hard on me emotionally go give it up! But my sex drive hasn’t returned so I think that dropping a feeding will help.
Is 2 feedings a day enough for a 1 year old? I feel like I am depriving him :(
I am nervous because somehow he is down to only 3 feedings a day. Always once in the morning, then again in the afternoon. Then when I come home from work I wake him up to nurse at midnight. It’s a catch-22 because waking him up at night is probably a horrible habit and it’s one more thing for me to do before I get to go to bed… but it seems the only way to keep my supply strong is to do this at night. I figure the extra breast milk outweighs the bad. However I would like to eventually get him down to morning and afternoon only. Luckily he is a good sleeper and doesn’t need to nurse before bed.
Before I had my son, I didn’t even know that children were breastfed for more than a year. Then I saw my girlfriend do it with her daughter.
My son and I had a real tough time getting started with breastfeeding. He had such a weak suck when he was born that the lactation consultants thought he would need occupational therapy and a specially shaped bottle. But with much help from the lactation consultant, lots of support from my friends who were successfully breastfeeding, and a pretty firm commitment on my part, we finallly got things going – just the 2 of us (no nipple shields, no nighttime bottles, no formula supplementation) by 10 weeks. During that time I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it 6 weeks breastfeeding, much less the year I had committed to.
Well my son is now 27 months old and we’re still going strong. I didn’t wean at a year because I knew he would be starting daycare at 15 months and I wanted to support him through that. I then kept going until 18 months because a friend of mine who was way busier then me had done the same for her son and said it was the best thing she had ever done. By 18 months I had read that babies should really be on breastmilk or formula for the 1st 2 years (not just 1) due to this period being crucial for brain development and the important role DHA plays in that. Now I figure he will either self-wean or I’ll lose my milk supply when he goes away for a week with his dad at Thanksgiving.
It has been an incredible ride. My son has only been sick to the point he needed to go to the pediatrician and get an antibiotic once and that was a week or two after he began daycare at 15 months. That illness would have been much more serious if we weren’t nursing since he spiked a 105 fever and refused food and drink, but happily nursed constantly, recovering quickly in just a few days. Once he started walking he went straight to running and hasn’t slowed down since, so our only real cuddle times have been when he stops long enough to nurse, usually before or after sleep times. During our nursing sessions we play games, sing songs and I ask him about his day. He now gets so excited to tell me that he rolls off my breast, asnwers the question and then gets right back on. Breastfeeding has also worked like a champ in calming him during our travels.
Best of luck to all who are going for this worthy goal. It really makes a difference for your relationship with your child in so many wonderful ways.
Elias feeds 4 times a day. I feed him 3 times before I leave for work at 4:30. Then I wake him up to nurse when I get home. It may be a bad habit because I am making him NOT sleep through the night, but at least my milk supply is better because of it. I CAN NOT pump anymore! I used to be able to pump up to 12 ounces, but I can barely get an ounce now because I don’t get the let-down reflex with the pump.
