I guess maybe I'm not a CLW-er after all :-(

[Hokulele]

Has anyone else experienced this?

DD will be four in June. Her baby sister is 9 months. When I was pg DD self-weaned mid-pg. I was glad she did because it was excruciatingly painful and I was sure she'd start back up again once the baby arrived.

Baby arrives - at first DD1 had no interest, but over the months she's gradually become more and more interested in nursing. It started with her asking to nurse only once every other day or so, but it has been building up until now - she asks to nurse several times a day.

I thought that if this happened I'd be overjoyed that she still wanted to nurse. But I am not. I'm maxed out / touched out / exhausted. When she asks the first thing that goes through my mind is "NO! I need this moment to myself" Luckily I don't feel this way about the baby nursing.

Has anyone else gone through this? It feels TERRIBLE! I love nursing my babies and I hate that I just feel overburdened by it. (Not nursing my baby, only nursing my older child.)

Does anyone have any advice on how to overcome this? I don't want to wean her. I want it to happen on her terms. I know I'll miss it very very much when she's done. I'm so sad even to write this post because I hate that I feel this way about it.

[bramblevine]

I wish I had good advice, but I don't. My daughter forgot how to latch by the time her sister was born. I'm not sure if it helps at all if I say that I think you're very lucky. I regret my situation very much. I hope you find a solution soon.

[TiredX2]

There is a couple things you could try.

First, you could try to really increase your nursing with your 4 year old. For some people that lets them get more used to the feeling. Also (and this is a big one) for some older children one reason they ask so much is to make sure they can. If they have a few weeks of nursing all the time, the need starts to lessen. Of course, that is really hard on mom. But you could try this for a limited time and see if it helped at all.

Secondly, it should like you could use some personal time and space. Do you have any time that is only yours? Any hobby? Do you get out without the kids? Or even "in" but you are not responsible and at least one of them is not hanging on you?

Another idea is to talk to DD. Some people have luck with making a deal with a child that is that old. Like, "From now on how about if you only nurse once a day, but that one time will just be you and me time and you can nurse as long as you want." Or something like that. DD nursed a lot when DS was small, but DS was generally the priority. Something that helped her with that was that each evening there would be a time that was HER nursing time. She could nurse as long as she needed and DP would take care of DS (now, the couple times he got frantic she was happy for him to come and nurse). This really reassured her that while she might need to put off her need, she WOULD get it met that day at least.

I definately understand feeling overwhelmed by the nursing... there are probably very few long term nursers who have never felt the emotions you are descibing. So, I might not be able to solve your problem, but I can definately say that I have been there and made it through it. And my kids did too