What do I do here?

[haydn'smommy]

I had the wee babe 2.5 mos ago. My oldest (32mos) weaned 10mos ago. He is quite enthralled with the baby getting "nee nees" and has asked many times to have nee nees himself. I have willingly offered it to him cause I did not want there to be jealousy there, and he has refused until this past week. Now he's trying to latch on and nurse. I don't really want to tandem nurse, although I will if that's what's best for both of them. And his latch sucks (pun not intended) so it's not the most comfortable thing in the world.
So, should I allow this to continue? If I do, how do I fix his latch? If not, how do I gently tell him no without hurting him? He was my whole world until 2.5mos ago, and now he's having to share me with someone else. I know it's hard for him and I don't want him to think that mama doesn't love him or doesn't want to be close to him like the baby, KWIM?

[haydn'smommy]

anyone?

[sunfish21]

Wish I knew what to tell you! DD is 21 mos, and I am due the end of Feb. I wonder how things will go for us, too. Hopefully someone has experience with this and can help you...

[craft_media_hero]

Sorry, I don't have much for you. I have no experience tandem nursing. For myself, I would not feel comfortable weaning a toddler and then re-instituting nursing with him again. I would probably be of the frame of mind where once you're done, you're done. Is it possible for you to not nurse in front of your toddler (probably a crazy question, I know---but maybe you could distract him and then go in the other room?) until it's kind of out of his mind. I would probably say something like "it's ___ turn for nee nees now" and then let the older child do something special and "big" that he normally doesn't get to do.

[Tjej]

My DD nursed up until a couple of months before my DS was born (she was almost 2), then didn't want to when he was born, THEN when we were back visiting my family when DS was 4 months old or so she wanted to and when I offered she tried to latch on too...she called my bluff.

I did not want to start nursing her again after she'd not been nursing for 6 or more months, and what we ended up doing was I noticed that she was wanting to nurse not really because she wanted to nurse but because she wanted attention and closeness (or sometimes she was thirsty). I would ask her if she was thirsty or wanted snuggles or what-have-you, and when we hit upon what the need was we worked with that. It went really well.

Occassionally when she was about 3 she would say she wanted to nurse too, but she didn't really want to, and we would just snuggle and she would pretend to nurse (smack her lips and me hold her in a cradle hold). It was fine. She didn't really want/need to nurse, she DID need to closeness and extra snuggles sometimes.

So that is how we approached it.

HTH


Tjej

[haydn'smommy]

Originally Posted by Tjej

My DD nursed up until a couple of months before my DS was born (she was almost 2), then didn't want to when he was born, THEN when we were back visiting my family when DS was 4 months old or so she wanted to and when I offered she tried to latch on too...she called my bluff.

I did not want to start nursing her again after she'd not been nursing for 6 or more months, and what we ended up doing was I noticed that she was wanting to nurse not really because she wanted to nurse but because she wanted attention and closeness (or sometimes she was thirsty). I would ask her if she was thirsty or wanted snuggles or what-have-you, and when we hit upon what the need was we worked with that. It went really well.

Occassionally when she was about 3 she would say she wanted to nurse too, but she didn't really want to, and we would just snuggle and she would pretend to nurse (smack her lips and me hold her in a cradle hold). It was fine. She didn't really want/need to nurse, she DID need to closeness and extra snuggles sometimes.

So that is how we approached it.

HTH


Tjej

THANK YOU!!! I think this is it. He really wants that closeness that he sees me have with the baby. I need to explore with him what his needs are when he's asking so that we can address those.