Weaned 2 year old still asks

[Evelynmia'smom]

I'm wondering how long my daughter will still ask to nurse. Clearly she wasn't ready to stop and it breaks my heart when she asks. I weaned her about 3 months ago....it wasn't traumatic, very gradual and she seemed ready at the time. The last session to go was the morning one. She asks now if she's upset or has gotten hurt. The reason I stopped nursing her was because I am pregnant and it was really painful and I started getting the icky feelings and just could not do it anymore. In the past month or so if she is really upset and asks I tried to let her nurse but it seems she has forgotten how to latch and seems a little confused. I'm wondering if others have come across this and how you handled it. I'd like to know how to explain it to her so that she can understand why we stopped nursing. I really don't want to tandem, but I know she will ask when the baby comes.

[D_McG]

DS (22 mos) only asked for a week or so. DD (21 mos) asked for longer. Maybe a month? But I never ever let her try or anything. If you really want to be done then I wouldn't entertain that at all. I just said "we don't nurse anymore!" and give her a hug or a snack or whatever. I don't let her touch my breasts or anything. We had to learn new ways to relate/comfort.

You seem to feel guilty? IMHO if you're not comfortable with your decision then she'll pick up on that and it'll make her feel insecure. If you know for sure that

you are done.
it's nothing to feel badly about.
It's 100% the right decision.
you can meet her needs fully without nursing

THEN you can lead her forward.

All she needs is a happy, confident mommy who makes her feel safe. Weaning during pregnancy is biologically normal IMO (which is not to say that the opposite is ABnormal). Your DD will be fine if you show her how.

[Juise]

Not to contradict anything that D_McG said, but if you feel that your daughter really wasn't ready and you feel that you could continue because of that, I wanted to tell you our experience.

I lost all my milk in my pregnancy with DD2 and was incredibly sick, not sure how far along you are, but that really horrible painful nursing in pregnancy did edge off. It continued to be sore on latch, but then was okay, although I don't really remember when it stopped hurting so much, sorry! After my milk was completely gone, DD1 went from being a constant nurser gradually to only asking a couple times a day, to once a day, once every couple day, then eventually in the last month she stopped asking at all. I felt really horrible about it.. I knew she was definitely not ready.

For me even though I was feeling sore and over-touched and no longer all too excited (an understatement!) about continuing to nurse her, it was obviously very important to her and so I wanted to continue anyway.

During much of my pregnancy after losing my milk, her "nursing" consisted of latching on, being "all done", switching sides, latching on, then being all done, with no actually nursing or even suckling involved. I kind of figured that after the baby was born and I had my milk back she'd just go back to nursing.

When she stopped asking in the last month I didn't bring it up, which is something I felt really guilty about. I hadn't expected her to ween but it was still sore and not something I was really in the mood for encouraging if she wasn't asking.. I still thought she'd just go back to nursing after baby was born.

Well, baby came, and when I asked her if she wanted to nurse, she told me, "No, just baby." I was shocked and heartbroken.. Then, after a week or two of periodically asking and her saying no, she suddenly asked to nurse, aannnddd.... totally didn't latch, couldn't latch, seemed to have no clue. Like you said, it seemed that she had forgotten how to actually latch or nurse. Then I felt even worse.. well, she kept asking and every time I would let her try and try to describe to her how. (You have to actually suck, honey, like how you suck on you water bottle. You actually have to keep nursing for a while before you can get milk.) It didn't seem to help.

Then, all of a sudden one night while putting her in bed, she asked to nurse and just *got* it, all on her own, and nursed for like 45 minutes.. now she asks to nurse all the time, and I am still trying to figure out balancing tandem nursing with a newborn and a toddler

Best of luck, in whatever your decision is.