Pregnant and Nursing a toddler who is driving me crazy

[StoriesInTheSoil]

I'm almost 34 weeks pregnant and I have a 26 month old who would be happy to nurse literally 100% of the time. He has no desire to do anything that is more important than his desire to always be nursing.

Thing is, he's NOT nursing! A significant portion of the time I can just pull him off, he's not latched on at all. He is putting his mouth on the nipple and kind of moving it around and flicking his tongue. It makes me SO angry, I am not usually provoked to rage but this non-nursing makes me want to scream and cry. He acts like he understands when I try to talk to him about it but then he doesn't really fix the issue. He cries like it's the end of the world when I tell him he can't nurse.

So really I need help with a couple of things. 1) What is this non-nursing stuff? Will it go away? Can I fix it? 2) How do I set clear limits for this child? When he's driving me crazy with actual nursing, I will sometimes count to 10 or sing the ABC song and then he has to be done which works fine but how to I convince him that the act of me sitting or laying down does NOT mean it's time to nurse! I am pregnant and very stressed and need rest more than anything right now, I can't nurse him 12 hours a day!

Thanks, mamas

[StoriesInTheSoil]

Any tips at all? I'm kind of at the end of my rope with this. I don't believe in premature, abrupt weaning but I'm very close to just saying no and being done with it- he's making me really, really irritated.

[D_McG]

How far are you willing to go with the limits? I can't bear to nurse in pregnancy and so ASAP had my son down to 3x/day (andn 0x/day as fast as was kind. Which was about 2 mos). But to me anyway every time I got that angry feeling was my cue to move on.

If you want to continue/tandem then maybe cut down to 1x/day until after you have your baby?

FWIW I felt like all my DS wanted to do was nurse, too but it was just our dynamic. We had to create new ways to relate and interact. Once nursing was off the table we worked it out. I'm not saying you should go that route. I'm just encouraging you to consider how flexible he probably really is!