Oh, goodness, Mama, it does get better. 2-year olds are just intense in general. I remember the competitive nursing. It would drive me crazy. At at 2, mine were still nursing every 2 hours during the day as well. I think DD would have nursed less, but whenever DS nursed she had to as well.
Mine nursed for many years beyond 2, so we somehow survived that. I did night wean at about this age, though, because I just couldn't be the kind of Mom I wanted to be on 6 hours of broken sleep a night. I have insomnia, so one would wake, nurse back to sleep, I'd toss & turn for an hour, finally start to drift off just in time for the other to wake, rinse & repeat. . . It was HARD (we mostly used Jay Gordon's ideas; Google his name & night weaning), but well worth it. And it made the daytime nursing so much more tolerable. At some point I also made a rule about one at a time in public because they would just get so wild and competitive, it was impossible to be discreet. Not that I worry too much about discretion, but it brought too much attention to have one 2-year old in arms nursing & another 2-year old jumping up and down grabbing at me and yelling "I want NONIES!"
We also started attending a co-op preschool 3 days a week around this age (mine gave up naps early so this was to give me a break at least some days) & added another rule of no nursing at school. Since I was a "working" parent at the school when I was there, it just didn't seem appropriate or fair to the other kids for them to be nursing. So that gave us several hours off from nursing at least some days.
Retrospectively, I can see that my twins' weaning wasn't a gradual process but a step-wise one. Often when things were the most intense and intolerable, they were approaching some developmental milestone & once we got beyond that, there was a sudden decrease in nursing frequency or intensity. At your boys' age, I wonder about napping & how nursing relates to their naps. . . things will likely change in that area soon if they haven't already!
Are you getting a break? Do you have a spouse/partner who your boys will stay with? It really really made a difference to have a few hours off every week on a regular basis, to rest or read or visit with friends (not time to clean or catch up on chores!). Are you getting exercise? Also so important & helpful to avoid burn-out. Watch nutrition as well; I have been taking a prenatal vitamin for 11 years now & when I've periodically stopped it, I notice a difference in my energy level despite a generally good diet. I really liked the book Mother Nurture by Rick Hansen; he discusses what he calls "depleted mother syndrome" & talks about how years of pregnancy & breastfeeding can deplete your body of certain nutrients. For a while I was taking several of the supplements he recommended & that also seemed to help when children's needs were so intense.
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