26-month-old nursing all the time, hardly eating

[wagamama]

DD nurses at least every two hours, all day long. Sometimes she wants more and I have to tell her to wait, because I literally feel worn out and empty. Meanwhile, she hardly eats. For instance, this morning, she ate a piece of apple, but her bowl of rice and her minestrone soup went untouched.

The problems here are 1) I'm feeling tired out from so much nursing (we did nightwean a couple of months ago, which has helped, although she still nurses at around 5am), and 2) DH is totally against this continued breastfeeding. He thinks that DD is not eating b/c of the breastmilk, and he's pushing me to stop nursing so that she will eat more.

I do enjoy nursing; I just wish I could nurse a bit less -- 3-4X a day would be great.

Any advice would be really appreciated!

[~bookcase~]

have you read the book 'nursing your toddler +' or something like that by LLL?

i haven't.lol. despite nursing four toddlers so far, but i'm thinking it might be reassuring for you.

if you wanted to limit some nursing at this point you can try to distract her: read a story, go for a walk, meet with friends at the park, go shopping, go for a drive etc etc........if you skip a feed she may show more hunger cues but she also may not.

you could also have snacks out that she can graze on in the day at her pace.

see a homeopath for constitutional treatment. if she's never eaten much then it;'s probably something you should be starting to address over the next few months but she doesn't need a huge quantity of foods - just imagine you are baby led weaning her (see Gill Rapley's book) and that might break some tension over it.

hth and hang in there

[wagamama]

That is helpful, thank you!