A New Thread For Mamas Who Are Doing Child Led Weaning

[MamaAllNatural]

It's been a while since anyone posted on the old thread and it's so long now that I thought I'd start a new one. I really miss all of the advice, support and sharing that are so helpful on the CLW journey. So please, everyone check back in!

Thanks Mother Sunshine for suggesting this.

[NatureMama3]

oh goody! I've been looking all over for you folk!

I realize I'm a far cry from where most are (my nursling is only 22 months), but already I'm experiencing a significantly different nursing relationship than most of my friends (irl or online) who nurse due to my philosophy of CLW. I lurk here for support!

[MamaAllNatural]

Hi!

It doesn't matter what age your child is at all. We can all learn from eachother.

I just realized I should change the thread title since not everyone knows what CLW means. Oops!

[mother_sunshine]

This is a good idea Mama All Natural. The old thread was getting very long and lost in the shuffle so hopefully this thread will bring new life to the forum.

NatureMamaOR, I just got your PM, glad you found it.

[Angierae]

Yippy!

I am so far into uncharted territory I hardly recognize myself. I remember once reading an atricle about a woman EBF her 3yo and thinking "Wow, that kid must be SO high-need." I never knew tandem could apply to anything other than bicycles. Now I thank God for 2 boobs! I am so glad you guys are here. You keep me from freaking myself out.

[kavamamakava]

My son is 3 1/2 and he nursed 2 weeks ago. Before that, it was 3 weeks since he last nursed. Sometimes I considered his weaning to have been child led weaning, but other times I realized I played a large role in his weaning. I read "Mothering Your Nursing Toddler" and realized that I had done almost everything in the weaning chapter. Only my son hadn't weaned. I got pregnant with my 2nd when he was only 8 months old and he nursed through the pregnancy. There were times when I had to set some clear boundaries with my body or when I just couldnt' nurse him when he asked. But that didn't cause him to wean. He just made up for missing a nursing session later on.
I do feel a little conflicted though on whether I can claim it was child led weaning or mother led weaning. I seriously don't feel that he stopped until he felt like it. I think the impetus was that my milk flow slowed down tremendously due to pregnancy and the taste changed and he just didn't feel like nursing anymore.
My daughter is still nursing frequently.

So anyway, I glanced through the other thread and this has been on my mind a bit. I guess we all have a different story and relationship with our nurslings

[mom2threenurslings]

Originally Posted by Angierae

Yippy!

I am so far into uncharted territory I hardly recognize myself. I remember once reading an atricle about a woman EBF her 3yo and thinking "Wow, that kid must be SO high-need." I never knew tandem could apply to anything other than bicycles. Now I thank God for 2 boobs! I am so glad you guys are here. You keep me from freaking myself out.

I can definitely relate! When I walked into my first LLL meeting, there was a woman nursing an 18 month old and I thought, "WOW! That kid is HUGE! And she's NURSING him!?!" I had planned to "give nursing a try" for maybe 3-6 months. Almost 6 years later I have nursed through one pregnancy, then tandem nursed, then tandem nursed through pregnancy, then triandem nursed until my oldest self-weaned on his fifth birthday. I'm currently nursing my 4+ year old and my 2+ year old.

Thanks for starting a new thread, MamaAllNatural!!!

[Mom4tot]

Hi everyone


It seems I have been on the computer less and less lately, but I am still checking in. I feel like our nursing relationships are such a journey once we surrender to it. I never expected to be nursing all of these years. Still, when I hear the term, "extended nursing", I think of dd, not ds. He is only 4!

I realize nursing into preschool age, not to mention, childhood, is quite suspect in our culture. Why would anyone *choose* to do it? I guess, for me, I chose to follow my chilren's needs and to trust them, and their feelings. Dd nurses less and less...but continues to sing songs about nursing, talk about nursing and talk about nursing her own babies. I don't know where the journey will lead us..but I do know nursing has helped to nurture empathetic, happy and secure children.

[Butter]

We do child led weaning

My daughter weaned at 3 years 5 months. She was nursing 4-6 times a day generally by that point. We had talked about weaning and she knew that whenever she was ready she could stop nursing. One Saturday she was walking with me to get the mail and told me she had enjoyed nursing and thanked me for doing it and said she was now ready to stopped and pronounced herself weaned. She had already nursed 3 times that morning and early afternoon so I wasn't sure if she truly meant it. Turns out she did mean it and she was weaned.

My son was 1 3/4 when Miss A weaned. He is 3 now and still nursing. I doubt he'll wean the way Miss A did. He'll probably be one of the slow weaners. It took him a couple months to completely cut out his night nursings back in May/June/July. I'm not even exactly sure when he nightweaned since he did it so slowly. I figure that's how he wean off his day nursings, too.

[eilonwy]

I intend to let my son wean himself, though I'm having doubts at the moment. Last night I had BooBah in the sling, and when I asked him to wait for Mike to finish doing laundry so he could hold her, you'd have thought the world ended. He screamed, threw himself on the ground, crying "I want nursies! Mamma, nurse your baby boy! Nurse a little boy! Maaaammmaaaa!!! NUUUUURRRRSSSIIIIIIIIIIIEEE!!" and on and on like that for a good half an hour, until Mike finished the laundry and came in to hold him while I put the baby back to sleep. It was absolutely awful. I don't think I can handle much more of it. He just doesn't understand that when he wakes his sister up, it will take me much longer to get to him than it would if he was just quiet for a few minutes. I'm totally losing it! :

He's back to getting most of his nutrition from me; his sister is, of course, recieving all of her nutrition from me. I'm physically exhausted, taking a vitamin doesn't seem to help, and if I didn't NAK I'd spend a grand total of 15 minutes a day online. Doing all this nursing, you'd think I'd at least be losing weight, but no, I appear to have gained five pounds since my daughter's birth. UGH. I'm absolutely disgusted with myself, and that doesn't help the nursing (or anything else).

I feel horribly guilty when I think about weaning my BeanBean, but I do think about it, and often. I don't think I should-- after all, when he's nursing he's quiet, he's my sweet little baby again... but when he's not nursing, sometimes he's just too much for me. He'd rather have me stay in bed all day just waiting for him to nurse than anything else, and I can't live like that. I don't get out enough as it is! I feel like my entire life revolves around when he needs to nurse. It's just really getting to be too much for me. Sometimes I just wish he'd leave me alone. :

[callmemama]

Hang in there eilonwy! Your toddler is really still a baby himself and can't understand how another baby could take his place!

My nursling will be 5 next month. He usually nurses to sleep every night, but recently dh has been putting him to bed one night a week. We had big plans to ride a train this weekend, and he was so excited about it, he put himself to bed (and to sleep) so he could wake up early! I think my little guy is growing up!

Thanks for starting a new thread MamaAllNatural. The other one really was too long and I was always taken aback when someone would respond to the poll in the midst of a CLW discussion - lol.

[NatureMama3]

Originally Posted by Mom4tot

Hi everyone
I feel like our nursing relationships are such a journey once we surrender to it. I never expected to be nursing all of these years.

YES!!!!!!! and while I've only been nursing for just under 2 years, I NEVER expected to be nursing THIS long. Until recently I'd only known 1 person who nursed past 1 or so and she was from a different subculture (hispanic).

The biggest difference I see between my/our nursing relationship and others around is there's no conflict of interest. I'm not struggling to (get enough sleep, get him to sleep on his own, get hiim to eat more solids, etc) and stressing about those "problems". We're just going with the flow and it's SO easy!

[Mom4tot]

Originally Posted by NatureMamaOR

The biggest difference I see between my/our nursing relationship and others around is there's no conflict of interest. I'm not struggling to (get enough sleep, get him to sleep on his own, get hiim to eat more solids, etc) and stressing about those "problems". We're just going with the flow and it's SO easy!

I acn relate to this also. Other moms would say things like..."don't you worry about him eating this or that..." or "Cosleeping can lead to all kinds of sleep problems.." or "don't you worry because you can't leave him?"

No. I din't worry about those things...or at least never attributed it to nursing or cosleeping!

[eilonwy]

Originally Posted by NatureMamaOR

The biggest difference I see between my/our nursing relationship and others around is there's no conflict of interest. I'm not struggling to (get enough sleep, get him to sleep on his own, get hiim to eat more solids, etc) and stressing about those "problems". We're just going with the flow and it's SO easy!

But what if you were struggling, not to change your child but to get through a day? I'm not trying to get my son to sleep on his own, I'm trying to keep him from hurting his sister or waking her up. I'm trying to keep my nipples from falling off (and boy do I ever feel like they're going to!) and from losing my mind. It's definately a source of tension a lot of the time. What would you do then?

[NatureMama3]

What would you do then?

Honestly say I don't know! Haven't tandem'd, which I assume is the big stressor?

That's definitely one of my concerns about tandem nursing (Noah being unable to understand the concept of sharing them).

Do you have someone who can help you during the day so that you are able to recharge your emotional batteries somewhat? I find that all types of emotionally draining parenting things (not just nursing) become bigger and more stressful if I'm not able to recharge my own emotional batteries during the day. When I'm having a particularly hard day, my DH will take the kids (even the nursling) out for a car ride and let me nap for an hour. It's not a lot but it's JUST what I need to be able to Mama again. My kids feed off my own emotional stress so if I'm not doing well, neither are they and the cycle feeds off itself.

[Mom4tot]

eilowny

I think tandem nursing, especially when you have a young toddler and an infant is really hard. You don't even see your results right away. You just keep hearing, "more. more".

Your little guy is still adjusting to sharing you...I saw a dufference in my 2 as my ds got a little bigger and could intereact with dd more. They began playing simple games and her attention turned to him. not just me all the time. I always told her, she would be his favorite person and it is so true!

You know, sometimes when ds was an infant, I took him out to the bookstore with a friend just to relax. Dh would put ds in the sling and dd and I would go for a walk or to the library...just the two of us.

I know it's hard, but your efforts are so worth it

[fraya]

kavamamakava:

I haven't read Mothering your Nursing Toddler. A friend (who suddenly weaned her 2 y.o. daughter one day) loaned me the book but I haven't had the urge to read it. I realize that there is a philosophy regarding child-led weaning that truly child-led means that the child nurses on-demand through his/her entire nursing relationship.

I consider myself to be committed to child-led weaning, but I have placed limits on my son's nursing, starting maybe when he was 2 y.o. or so ... if he asked to nurse because he was bored or something like that while I was eating, I asked him to wait until after I was done eating (and then always followed-through) and offered to have him sit on my lap instead, etc. I didn't delay nursing often, but I did do it sometimes. Until the last 6 months or so, he nursed A LOT. I didn't nightwean him, but I think that on some thread somewhere here, somebody who nursed her daughter until her daughter was 6 or 7 nightweaned her earlier ... and I'd probably still consider that child-led weaning.

I guess to me, weaning begins when we introduce solid foods. Does that mean that anybody who introduces solid foods isn't CLW? I view child-led weaning as being a choice where the child decides when to terminate his/her nursing relationship entirely (and not necessarily determining each of the components of the relationship). To me, to say that placing limits on the child's nursing is not child-led weaning is inconsistent with, say, having another child. The baby needs to nurse, so is nursing the baby (first, let's say--so the older child waits until after the newborn has finished nursing ... and I know tandem is possible, but sometimes, nursing a newborn is tough and the newborn nursling's nursing issues might make it impossible to simply latch two on at the same time) imposing a limit on the older child's nursing relationship? Then anybody who has another child before the older one weans (and delays the older child's nursing, even once, in order to nurse the newborn) is not child-led weaning. To me, that isn't reconcilable.

Also, a mother's needs, in my mind, must be considered (along with all other relevant needs -- the child's, spouse's, siblings', society's ...). If I hadn't put some limits on my son's nursing, I would've been so drained that I'd've probably considered more drastic steps regarding weaning. I believe very strongly in considering my son's needs foremost. I am still co-sleeping with him, nursing him while pregnant, etc. (he's 3.5 y.o.). Generally, my approach is to take care of his needs so that he feels capable of helping me take care of my own (and, the best case scenario is when we can take care of both of our needs simultaneously, by engaging in an activity together that meets both of our needs ... and sometimes, nursing IS that activity). But I would not be doing him any favors if I gave-up my needs all of the time for him (or anyone else), because I'd be cranky, resentful, depressed. I am fortunate that I don't have too many true needs, so fulfilling them is usually within reach. Other mothers have even fewer or different needs that makes it even easier for them to meet their needs and their children's needs simultaneously.

This got a bit off-topic. I'd just hate for you to be feeling like you didn't give your child what you wanted to give him, simply because you got pregnant or occasionally asked him to wait for you to fulfill a need of yours before you fulfilled a need (or desire) of his.

[Angierae]

I don't think I can handle much more of it. He just doesn't understand that when he wakes his sister up, it will take me much longer to get to him than it would if he was just quiet for a few minutes. I'm totally losing it!

Oh man, do I know where you are coming from! I feel like all day long I'm telling DD1 to be quiet--I swore I'd never do that, but DD2 is such a light sleeper and it takes so long to get her to sleep. Somedays DD1 just starts yelling as soon as she hears me whisper.

On the good side I have figured a way to get DD1 asleep in the sling and then pop out a boob to the side to let DD1 nurse.

However...

But what if you were struggling, not to change your child but to get through a day? I'm not trying to get my son to sleep on his own, I'm trying to keep him from hurting his sister or waking her up. I'm trying to keep my nipples from falling off (and boy do I ever feel like they're going to!) and from losing my mind. It's definately a source of tension a lot of the time.

I feel like this at some point EVERY day. It is slowly getting better--I think it takes along time to adjust, for everyone. I have accepted that I am not going to wean DD1, even though I think about it and wonder if she will just stop. Wishful thinking, I know. But the acceptance is helping me stop driving myself nuts.

When both girls are asleep and my nipples are finally getting a break, I watch them sleep and tell myself, "healthy and happy, healthy and happy." Thats all I ever wanted to accomplish as a mother, and I know I am doing that. Validation? Vindication? I don't know, but somehow it helps.

[Angierae]

Is there a thread specifically for Tandem nursing moms?

[MamaAllNatural]

Rynna

It sounds like you're in a rough spot right now. Try to just breath deep and know it will eventually pass, even if it doesn't feel that way right now.

I do find it helpful to keep the baby in the sling as constantly as you can. This way you're giving the baby your attention but to your toddler's eyes you're not as focused on the baby. It's kind of like being pregnant from the outside. It's easier for the toddler to accept and you can tend to them more easily this way. Also, like a PP said, you can nurse out of one side while the baby's in the sling (the breast under the rings) and Eli can just stand to nurse or sit up beside you. Also, can you nurse lying on your back (with them each cradled in one arm)? Another good one is nursing the baby while side lying and letting Eli straddle your hip and nurse off the other side. I know you want to get up, I'm just thinking if you need to relax these are good ways to do that while nursing.

Also, he'll want to nurse less while you're out and if you can keep from sitting down while you're home. If you can nurse the baby in the sling (especially with an open tail sling you can cover her) he won't know she's nursing so at that moment he won't need to, kwim? Are you able to get out and go to the park, library storytime, playdates, etc.? I would try to keep him really occupied if you can but still try to nurse him when he asks. If he senses you're not wanting to nurse him he's going to want it all the more. Also, if he does need to wait (you're going to the bathroom, you're in the middle of something etc.) just let him know he can have booba as soon as you're done doing X. Then as soon as you're done follow up and nurse him and tell him thank you for waiting, you know it was hard for him. I know, that is so hard to hear them scream. I think this is just one of those places a lot of mothers find themselves adjusting to two children and the siblings adjusting to eachother - whether you're nursing them both or not.

I hope this improves soon.

* I wanted to add a couple of things. Have you read "Adventures in Tandem Nursing?" Also, here are some things that many mothers have found helpful when an older sibling is having a hard time adjusting to the new baby:

- try to involve him in "helping" with the baby (have him bring you a diaper, a toy for the baby, let him lift up her side of the shirt to nurse, if she cries let him gentle "pet" her head to help her feel better, etc.)
- try to comment on what a helpful, kind, special big brother he is. Point out when the baby likes something he's doing. Try to "talk" to the baby about how lucky she is to have such a wonderful big brother (so he can hear you).
- Try to have dh or someone else hold the baby while you can read a story to Eli or do something else that he likes to do with you.

HTH

Hi Mom4tot!