My experience with tandem nursing (very long)

pearblossom · April 2012

I have been asked a few times about nursing my toddler, so I figure I'll just throw it all out there. Obviously, your own choices and experiences will vary but hopefully this info is helpful.

For anyone considering having another LO while nursing, I highly recommend reading Adventures in Tandem Nursing by Hilary Flowers. It is very comprehensive (nursing while pregnant, tandem nursing as well as weaning while nursing). It was a great starting point for me in my decision making process.

We began TTC when DD was 6 months. I did have my period back, but it was very light and I was on the mini pill for 3 months before stopping. We agreed to do it casually and if we did not get pregnant after a year I would start charting, but I got impatient and started using dollar store OPKs and we conceived after 4 cycles when DD was 10 months.

Right at 8 weeks, my supply tanked. It was probably a combination of the morning sickness, lack of calories, hormones and mild dehydration. It didn't bother DD at all, she still wanted to nurse and so I let her, but we introduced WCM right at one year as a supplement.

DD has always been a frequent nurser and was still nursing once at night. I had to cut off her night nursings because I just couldn't handle it. There is some hormonal reaction you can get (that is not uncommon) which makes nursing painful or extremely uncomfortable. I only had it at night. I also weaned her down to two day nursings to conserve my strength and calories. This was also the time she was introduced to television and peanut butter. I would turn on cartoons and give her a spoonful so I could go barf.

In the last month or so I started producing again. I am not 100% sure whether it was colostrum or milk but I lean toward colostrum. She loved it and I had to really work toward keeping her nursing only twice a day. When I delivered, she stayed with my mom and I did not see her for 3 days. She was 19 months old by this time so it was nbd to go without BM for a couple days. So LO got 2 full days of colostrum all to himself.

My milk came in on day 3 and it was insane. Soooo much milk. DD and I completely fell off the wagon with 2 nursings also. She wanted to nurse constantly - partly because of the abundant milk and partly because of the attention/snuggling and I just let her. I made sure that LO always got his fill first and it worked out fine. I did think that nursing them both together would be pretty special but it turns out I prefer to just have them take turns. Too much squirming.(But I did get a pic for the nurse in tomorrow!)

Now that she is 2 and the baby is not a huge new big thing in her life, we have started the weaning process. I also wanted to nurse her through the winter so she could have (hopefully) better immunity with a newborn around. We have started talking about giving her tittles to baby brother and all the things she can do that he can't. She is pretty okay with it, but she is getting her2 yr molars and those SOBs are the worst teeth of all. I still let her now and then if her mouth hurts. We nurse about 3x a week at this point.

I'm really glad I did it, it was something that was very important to me. It was also very overwhelming at times. I felt like someone was always demanding my boob and I never got a rest. I also don't like how hungry I am ALL THE TIME. It is so much worse than pregnancy. I never feel satisfied and it has led to some bad food decisions and bad attitude problems. But other than that it is very satisfying. Like I said in the EBF post, everyone shares their opinion with me. That gets very old, but I do take the time to try to educate people as tactfully as possible and do my part to normalize it.

Thanks for reading if you made it through!

AngLK987 · April 2012

Thank you for sharing! I have flip-flopped back & forth about the possibility tandem nursing, we want to TTC when DD is 1 year, but probably won't be nursing more than 1x/@ night when LO#2 is born, we'll see how it goes.

jonnygurl76 · April 2012

props to you girl, there is no way i could have nursed while KU!

and i hear you about the 2 year molars--those bushes were the worst! they turned my happy, sweet girl into a monster. so glad she finally has all of her teeth, just in time for DS to start getting his...

CA2006 · April 2012

Kudos to you and thank you for sharing your story. That cleared things up for me!

HappyAardvark · April 2012

Thank you for posting this!!

sewpinkgal · April 2012

Thank you for sharing this. I'm not sure I could do it, but I enjoyed reading about your experience.

btsrc5 · April 2012

that is awesome!

One question though... are you a SAHM? or did you pump while working?

aml+japan · April 2012

Interesting, thanks for sharing! I don't think I'd have the mental fortitude for that. Luckily we're not TTC yet.

pearblossom · April 2012

btsrc5:
that is awesome!
One question though... are you a SAHM? or did you pump while working?

Thanks!

I am a full-time student and work part-time on breaks. I have rigged my schedule so I don't need to pump while away but I do either right when I get home or before leaving and I do one more right before bed.