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Attachment Parenting
Talk to me about extended breastfeeding...
I'm thinking about doing that with the Bugster. She's still only liking to eat a minimal amount of solids and prefers to nurse. I'm gradually working her up to more and more food, though it's a battle. So I'm thinking she would probably benefit from extended breastfeeding.
Anyone else do it?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Talk to me about extended breastfeeding...
Let's try this again...
This is going to sound snarky, but seriously, weaning at the magical age of 12 months is kind of ridiculous and artificial, especially since your LO is giving clear signs that she still needs to BF. I would qualify nursing beyond the age of two as "extended", given that the WHO recommends nursing until at least two.
Babies under the age of 1 do just fine with only breast milk, so you may be causing more problems than you are fixing by making food a "battle" as you put it. Your LO will definitely eat solid food eventually, but IMO it would be wise to let her do it on her own schedule.
Also, if it's not obvious by now, I'm still BF, as are many many other women on this board. It's perfectly normal!
Oh not at snarky at all. And thanks for the honest answer
I agree with you that its not really extended until after 2, but unfortunately in our society most consider after the "magic 12 month" mark. I didn't know what to qualify my post title as, so I titled it extended. Sorry for the misnomer.
I don't force solids on Buggy, which is why I term it a "battle." She just doesn't want to eat them. So it's a struggle on my psyche because I feel like she should be eating some kinds of solids, even though I know in my head she's okay with just breastmilk right now. I know she needs to eat though, and I worry that she isn't going to. It's a stupid worry, but a mother's worry nonetheless. She eats hardly any solids, and mainly nurses.
That's fantastic that you are still breastfeeding. What do you recommend regarding solids and whole milk and what not? I'm really thinking this is something that is going to be right for Buggy and myself.
Thanks so much!
Let's try this again...
That's what we do. We do BLW and give her finger foods. She won't eat anything off a spoon...except prunes, lol.
She just isn't really into food. She'll eat a bit at dinner, and maybe a little at lunch, but other than that, nothing. And by bit I mean, one or two small green beans. So, not much.
Let's try this again...
Our 17 mo still nurses about 6x/day. It took her a while to get into solids, too. Whenever I would read through posts about how many ounces/meals per day other babies were eating I thought, woah, we are no where near that.
I guess we have done some BLW... and some parent-led weaning
At first I made purees but moved on to more texture and then let DD loose with self-feeding. By 15/16 mos she was night weaned and currently I try to group her nursing sessions together with meals and snacks. She always has access to water in a sippy and sometimes she'll drink cow's milk or kefir.
I'm still nursing both of my children. My DS nurses 1-4x a day and my DD is more like 1-3x a week.
My DD was on 75% BM and 25% formula until 12 months, and then BM/whole milk until 14 months. Then I didn't want to pump all the time so we switched her to whole milk. When my DS was 12 months we introduced sippy cups of milk because his sister was getting them and he wanted them.
He didn't drink much and was still nursing quite often (I really don't remember but it was probably every 2-3 hours round the clock). I've been lucky that both my children chow down on food and always have. We've always offered a lot of variety and just kept giving them a chance to try things. We never forced or pushed them to eat, they just always did.
My DD didn't latch the first time until she was about 21 months, although I had been trying since she came home at 7.5 months. She could follow directions more easily at 21 months and wanted the cuddle time with me like her brother gets.
I've noticed a drop off in the amount of time either of my children want to nurse. I've also noticed my DS dropping nursing sessions (he used to want to nurse every afternoon around 4, but seems to be interested only 2-3 days a week). I'd like to be done around age 3.
I'm not technically in the "extended" category yet, since my DD is only 13.5 months, but I'll answer anyway.
Up until about 2 weeks ago, DD was eating very little solids. Similar to what you said in one of your posts about "two green beans"-yep, that was my DD! We actually just started doing some purees again because I knew she wanted to eat food, but she wasn't willing to eat the finger foods. She's done really well with purees and has started eating more of the finger foods that we've offered her. Around 10 mon. her only solids throughout the day were cheerios and goldfish! So yea, not much!
Around her birthday, we did start offering her cow milk in her sippy and she really likes it. She doesn't see it as a substitute for nursing though, she sees it as a treat! That's fine, I enjoy nursing her and I'm hoping she'll nurse until around 18-24 mo. If she goes much past that, I plan to wean her. Right now she's nursing about 4-5x per day.
We are still nursing at 17 months.
I have a different story than if I was a SAHM, but stopped pumping at 11 months, Used up the rest of the freezer stash by 13 months and then DS had cow's milk during the day at daycare after that point. He still nurses at bedtime and in the morning /during the night if he wakes up and sometimes before naps on the weekends.
Anyways, he's actually a great eater of regular food, but i wanted to nurse him somewhat through flu season (15 months) and then as long as he wanted to.
What your baby is doing is completely normal
Even though babies start eating solids at around 6 months, their main source of nutrition should be BM. We start introducing solids so they can experiment with them, but they are not necessary at that age at all. I do understand why you worry though, all mommies want to make sure their babies are getting enough nutrition and enough food and you can't meassure BM...so you don't know how much your baby is actually getting. Your little bugster wont be too interested in solids for a little while longer, but just continue to introduce them. Just keep in mind that solids are more like a snack at this age and she's getting everything she needs from you! As long as she has enough wet and dirty diapers and is growing at a steady rate, she's most likely just fine
so yes...continue nursing her as much as she wants, you both will def benefit from it. I nursed my DD a little over 2 years and I loved it and will do the same with my second DD when she's born. Good luck momma!!
I'm not extended yet (see ticker, just a few weeks from where you are), but there's a lot of really good info on nursing toddlers & nutrition on Kellymom.com. Ari loves solids (we've done BLW) but still nurses quite frequently, & my plan has been to go until 2 years or until he weans, whichever comes 1st.
Ari also has severe food allergies, including dairy, so I was curious about the whole cows milk thing too. Basically you can introduce it if you wish but it's not a must from what I've read, so if your LO doesn't like it, don't stress about it. There's more info on kellymom about that too.
https://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/toddler-foods.html
https://www.kellymom.com/bf/bfextended/toddlernursing.html
Yes. My min goal was to nurse her for 2 years. I was planning to let her self wean until her latch got so bad that I had deep teeth marks on my nipples every time she nursed. I started weaning her at 34 months, and she was done nursing at 38 months.
DD did do really well with solids. We started at 6 months. She was eating two "meals" a day at 9 months and three "meals" a day at 12 months.
Up to 12 months she was nursing every 3 hours around the clock. That's the point I stopped pumping at work and started transitioning to giving her sippies of cow's milk at daycare. I still nursed her on my lunch hour up until 17 months (so she was nursing morning, lunch, after work, before bed, and 1-2x at night). We were on that schedule until 26 months when I night weaned her - so nursing 3x a day at that point. She was nursing 3x a day at 34 months when I started weaning completely.
Charlotte Ella 07.16.10
Emmeline Grace 03.27.13
Honestly, I continued to nurse because DD and I still enjoyed it and because it felt right, not because I was worried about her caloric intake. DD was eating tons of solids by age 1, but was still drinking about 24 oz. of EBM when I was working away from her for the day. She just really loved BM and loved to nurse. As she got older and more mobile, I loved the quiet time it gave us to snuggle together and also loved having an extra "tool" to comfort her during bouts of illness, teething, etc.
I didn't want to pump anymore after the 1 year mark, but this coincided with my beginning to work exclusively at home. From about 12 months-15 months, I would ocassionally leave a bottle or two of what was left of my EBM freezer stash for DD if I was going to be away from her for an extended period of time (6-8 hours) and then moved on to cow's milk once the freezer stash ran out. She wasn't as in to the cow's milk and wouldn't drink it all after 15 months. At that point, if I was going to be away from her, she only ate food while I was gone and didn't get any kind of milk at all. It's still this way. By 15 months, DD was nursing in the am, before her nap, before bedtime and, every once in a while, at one other point during the day.
I always thought I would let DD self-wean, but around 20 months or so, I started feeling like I wanted to be done by the time she turned 2. I tried to follow a "don't offer/don't refuse" system, but it really didn't cut down on her nursing. We went on vacation in March (when she was 22 months old) and she increased the amount she was nursing due to being completely out of her element, meal times being off, etc. After we came back from that trip, I decided to actively start weaning her myself and have cut out two nursing sessions per day over the course of about 4 weeks. We are down to only nursing in the mornings now and I would like to cut that session out by her 2nd birthday in a couple of weeks or soon thereafter.
Our nursing relationship has been great and I think we've both gotten a lot out of it. I can't imagine having weaned DD at 1 year and I think if I was in a different place right now in my life, I might even nurse her beyond 2 years. It's all about your comfort level and the circumstances you find yourself in. I've gotten a couple of side-eyes when I've nursed my toddler in public, but for the most part, my friends think it's great that we continue to nurse and have been extremely supportive of me as I navigate the difficult territory of weaning. In fact, I've needed their support A LOT lately because weaning is so much harder than just continuing to nurse when you have a child who will happily keep nursing, IMO.
Surgery for ectopic pregnancy June 3, 2008
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BFP #2 September 25, 2008
Baby boy born June 4, 2009 at 40 weeks
8 pounds 13 ounces and 23 inches
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BFP #3 February 6, 2011
First U/S February 25, 2011 = TWINS!!!
Boy/girl twins born October 4, 2011
Since my son is only 13 months I wouldn't call our nursing relationship "extended" yet, but until his 1st birthday he ate NO solids. None. He rejected purees and cereal as soon as we tried to offer them at 6 months so we gave up and switched to baby-led weaning. He still hated food. He just has a real problem with any soft or mushy textures and 8 teeth are not enough for really hard food so we struggle to find things he'll even try.
On his birthday he ate quite a bit of the cake we offered him and now he's moved to apple slices, baby yogurt, sweet potato oven fries, and an occasional veggie puff or pretzel. He doesn't eat enough solids to qualify as nutrition and he's not at all interested in whole milk so he's nursing at least 7-8 times a day and 1-2 times at night. I try to cluster feed as much as possible around mealtimes so I don't end up nursing aaaaaaall day but if I go more than 3 or 4 hours without bfing he makes up for it at night. I was really worried it wasn't going to be enough food, especially since he's been walking since 10 months and is VERY active but if you could see his thighs you'd know he's definitely not starving
I plan to continue nursing as long as I can (my goal is 2 years) but with #2 on the way at the end of the year I'm pushing the solids a little harder than before.
I'm expecting #4. I nursed my first almost 3 years and the next about 26 months and the next about 23 months... they each self weaned and I attribute the reduction in nursing duration due to the commotion/fun in the house added by each new sibling... rather than settling into my lap for cozy time- the younger two would do really quick little "touch base with mom" drive bys on their way to do something else.
I am not going to be one of those people who say that nursing beyond a year has no nutritive value... but the in my experience the nursing was much more about collecting and regrouping emotionally in that huge period of physical and verbal growth than it was for *food* The amount of time and the actual ounces of milk... for that second year- were really next to nothing and the effort to be a nursing mom- was, save for not wearing a one piece dress, next to nothing compared to nursing a newborn.
Thank you all so much! This makes me feel so much better. I've been so worried about the stupid year mark and the fact that everyone is saying she needs to be on solids by then, that I'd put my intuition by the wayside.
I'm going to just continue on like we are doing, and she will wean when she's ready. I'm not ready to give up nursing. I enjoy the me and her time too much.
Thank you guys! I feel SO much better!
Let's try this again...