Triple Overtime
International Breastfeeding Symbol
A year ago, I posted about how we were into double overtime with The Little Empress still nursing at 24 months. I wondered whether or not she would be weaned by 3 years old.
Well, I’m here to report that she’s not. It is official: we’re in to triple overtime. At 36 months, The Little Empress is still an avowed boob addict.
Of course, we’re nursing a lot less frequently than we were a year ago. After some struggle, she finally nightweaned herself sometime in the late Fall. (I get SLEEP now! Hurrah!!) Her afternoon nursing disappeared when she began school. She can only nurse from the right side now (her preferred side) since she stopped nursing from the left about two months ago.
We’re down to one final bedtime nursing. She no longer nurses to sleep but does insist that she get at least some boob time which has kept the milk flowing.usually it is just nursing for a minute, maybe two, before she either falls asleep or otherwise figures out a way to get herself to dreamland.
I’ve been trying to convince her that Big Girls Do Not Need to Nurse but she is rejecting this reality. In her world, Big Girls Do Nurse (and Still Use Diapers!) and for her, still being allowed to nurse is her way of reconnecting after a busy day. Taking that into consideration, I don’t think I could force her to give it up.
Looking back, it is almost a miracle that we’ve gone as far as we have. We had such a rough start in the beginning, with latching issues, bad lactation consultants pushing formula onto us, sore and bleeding nipples, that I wanted so badly to give up. But we toughed it out. I nearly lost my milk supply when I went back to work (while she went on a bottle strike!) but regained it when I became a stay at home mom.
We may very well be nursing until she’s past 4 years old or we may stop next week. Whatever happens, I’m so very thankful to have had the opportunity to nurse as long as we have.
Read MoreSleepless
About a week and a half ago, we transitioned The Little Empress from sleeping in our family bed to her own full-sized futon the floor beside our bed. The futon was originally in her room and while she showed interest in it, I was hesitant to let her sleep in her own room because I was afraid I wouldn’t hear her cry. The shared room co-sleeping was working well until I accidentally let her cry it out a few nights ago and our sleep hasn’t been the same since.
While she had been a pretty good sleeper up until that point, TLE’s now regularly getting up every 2 to 3 hours after being put down to sleep . Last night, she got up at 10:30PM and started crying for me to nurse her back down. She had a full meal before bed, with plenty of milk, so there’s no reason that she would have woken up other than being insecure.
Midnight nursing was never a problem when we shared a bed and it has been at least several months that she’s actually nursed in the wee hours. I’m usually free from being pawed between the time I put her down to about 6:00AM. But now that she’s in a bed on the floor, and demanding to be nursed down, I’m having to get out of my bed, move down to her bed, nurse her down and then (maybe) crawl back into my own bed. And that’s if she doesn’t get up and start crying the moment she feels me try to leave the bed. More often, I’m sleeping for hours at a time on her futon which is great for her but not so great for me.
*sigh* Just when I thought she’d nightweaned herself, this has thrown a wrench into things. I was really hoping not to forcibly nightwean her but it looks like I may have to in order to get some semblence of sleep. Until then, I’m guzzling coffee like there’s no tomorrow….
Read MoreDouble Overtime
International Breastfeeding Symbol
When I made the decision to breastfeed The Little Empress, I would have never believed that I would still be nursing two years later. At 24 months old, The Little Empress is just as attached to the boob as she ever was.
I’ve been asked by several people when I plan on weaning her. The short answer is: I don’t. As a stay at home mom with no health reasons to stop breastfeeding (ie. starting medication, etc.) I simply see no real reason to stop breastfeeding. Plus, TLE may be my only little one — why wouldn’t I want to extend this as long as possible? Once we’re done, there’s no getting this time back. If neither of us are ready for this part of our lives to be over, then why rush it?
That being said, I’m not against nightweaning. I had reached such a level of sleep deprivation due to all night breastaurant buffet runs that I resolved to nightwean her. We tried twice: once at 19 months and again at 22 months. To say she resisted would be putting it nicely; even two months after the last attempt, I’m still shell shocked by the amount of screaming involved. We used Dr. Jay Gordon’s method which is a gradual nightwean while still allowing for co-sleeping that has worked well for countless AP families. Sadly, The Little Empress’ will outlasted my own twice so it failed. (She screamed so much in protest that we all ended up losing more sleep.The kicker is that I never left her while she was screaming but boy howdy, was she mad!) I’ll probably try again in another month or two, once she’s adjusted to school.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that I let her nurse whenever she wants. Until now, TLE has been under the assumption that my boobies somehow belong to her and she’ll be damned if she’s not allowed access. As a baby, it was cute but as a toddler, it has gotten downright annoying. While I love the closeness that extended nursing brings to us both, power struggles over who owns the boobies are decidedly not fun. I’m starting to set stricter limits on when she can and can’t nurse. She is slowly but surely beginning to recognize when I’m serious about NOT letting her nurse. She can tantrum all she wants — boobie doesn’t come out just because she wants it to.
While I never hesitated to nurse her in public as a baby, I’m less apt to do so as a toddler. This has mostly to do with the fact that she has this annoying habit of playing with the non-nursing breast. And by playing with it, I mean full on, toddler palming grope with nipple twists. I have tried like hell to stop it, all with no luck. I don’t embarrass all that easily but having a nursing toddler practically undress you in the middle of a restaurant while copping a feel for the world to see is pretty damn embarrassing, even for me.
There are days when she’ll nurse more than 10 times a day and others when she’ll nurse only to nap and sleep. Sometimes I’m fine with being a human feedbag and others, I can barely stand to be touched. But I try to keep an open mind about it, reminding myself that there will come a day when she is no longer nursing and I’ll look back on these days and laugh.
TLE nursing @ 23mo
I wonder if I will be looking back on this entry in a year with a still nursing preschooler… or a weaned one.
Read MoreA minute to a moment
Tantrum to tentative smiles
I can’t say that The Little Empress’ transition from babyhood to toddlerhood has been a smooth one for either of us. I have watched my high needs baby growing into a spirited toddler. Yes, she may cry more or may be clingier than other kids her age. She may also drive me insane with her constant need for touch and affection. But she also gives the most ferocious hugs, laughs with gusto and explores with the type of curiousity that have led geniuses before her to discover new and exciting things.
I know that lately I’ve been getting mired in the day to day difficulties of raising a toddler, wallowing in my exhaustion. But when I take a minute to appreciate this moment in her life, suddenly the exhaustion and annoyances mean very little. Like her babyhood, her toddler years will come and go, and I will wonder where my curious little explorer went. So rather than gripe about What The Todder Did Again ™, I’ll remind myself to take a minute to laugh with as she splashes in a puddle of apple juice or stroke her cheek as she nuzzles for another nursing session. These moments will be gone before I know it and it would be a shame if I missed them all because I was too wrapped up in myself to appreciate them.
Read MoreThe Gentlest Thing
The past few days haven’t been easy since The Little Empress was a bit discombobulated from her birthday party on Saturday. Poor little thing is still so very easily overstimulated and it has made her clingier and needier than usual. For us, this means she’s been nursing around the clock again and it has been wearing me down.
I had just about lost my patience with TLE who has been bouncing from boob to boob pretty much all night. Finally, she’s gone down for the night and while she snoozed beside me, I found this video on YouTube.
I’m reminded again how lucky I am to share this special bond with my little one and despite how exhausting it can be at times, I still treasure every single nursing we have.
Read MoreThe Twiddle Monster
The Little Empress has always been what you could call, uh, an acrobatic nurser. As she became more mobile, it seemed to be fun for her to turn nursing into some sort of infantile gymanstics event, twisting, turning and generally getting herself into some truly odd positions. She also has a habit of practically somersaulting from boob to boob, as though she’s trying to decide which side tastes better. As she’s grown, these gymnastics routines have been increasing in frequency and weirdness to the point that one of these days, I’m expecting her to nurse upside down, balancing a sippy on her foot. I’m sure that experienced toddler moms will assure me that this is, for all intents and purposes, all in toddler-day’s work.
As strange and gravity defying as these nursing routines are, they do not bother me. In fact, I welcome them because they show that The Little Empress is becoming more mobile and creative. (I had never really thought that “jungle gym” was in a mother’s job description; I guess I just never read the fine print.) Sure, there are days when I wish she would just lay there like the mostly-compliant lamprey newborn she once was but hey, it is a part of growing up.
What does bother me is the fact that TLE insists on twiddling whatever nipple she is not nursing on. Every. Single. Time. No matter how I try to cover up or protect myself, a free hand will come out of no where to twiddle. This is especially annoying in the middle of the night when she wakes up to nurse. No sooner than she latches on will that hand come up. In my head, I hear the Jaws theme as her free hand pats the boob, looking for her toy of choice and then… TWIDDLE! AAAAAAH!
Much to my annoyance, TLE is just a twiddler and try as I might, nothing will stop her from twiddling. Nursing necklaces offer no distraction — she simply eyes them, scoffs (I swear, she does scoff!) and then, with a maniacal glint in her eye, she goes after the nipple with even more gusto. A boob tucked securely into a shirt, bra, tank top or combination thereof, is also easily defeated. A hand shielding said nipple will get pulled at or otherwise she’ll try to force her hand under mine. A very persistent girl, TLE is. If I do not relent, the boob currently in TLE’s mouth will get chomped with enough teeth to injure before she moves on to bite the hand. OW!!
*sigh* At this point, I know there really isn’t much I can do to stop Ms. Twiddler. Something about twiddling settles her and like it or not, I think I have to just let it be. She’ll outgrow it. Maybe. At the very least, she will not nurse forever and someday I’ll laugh at it. But for now, all I can do is roll with the twiddles. Gyah.
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Copyright
Text and photographs copyrighted by Michelle N unless otherwise noted.