Jealousy...tandem with 3 year old and one month old

[erica812]

We welcomed our third child 4 weeks ago today.  Our middle child turned 3 last week, and he is having a hard time sharing nursing time with his new baby sister.  He asks to nuse frequently again (used to be just bedtime), and he makes up stories about "hurting" in order to get a chance to nurse.  I am letting him nuse for a couple of minutes here and there, but I have low supply issues, so I have to be very careful about when I give him time to nuse.  When I try to nurse both together, my son is very pushy with the baby.  He even tries to pull her off the breast.  I tandem nursed son1 and son2 with no problems at all.  Any advice?

Thanks!

[Marissamom]

what worked for me (my two are 22 months apart) was to asign each child a side and allow each of them unlimited access to their side and the baby sometimes got his sister's side (that way I knew my toddler wouldn't take all the milk). at first my toddler was nursing constantly, but after a bit she was able to start cutting back again because she knew I wasn't going to let her brother steal all of her milk. if you're having supply issues at 4 weeks, then it might be a good idea to try to nurse your toddler a lot for the next couple weeks while your supply is still in the critical building phase.