Will toddler be jealous of breastfed baby?

[PhilPhil]

I'm still breastfeeding ds who is 19months but only once a day - at bedtime. I'm 16 weeks pregnant so he'll be 2 when the baby is born. I'm happy to carry on with his feed but I'm worried that once there's a baby then he'll want milk during the day again (at the moment it's not offered, and so I don't think it occurs to him - he associates milk now with bedtime, but once there's a baby he'll see it going on...). I don't feel I want to end up feeding him more than this one bedtime feed. My husband and parents all think I should wean him now to prevent trouble when the baby comes but I'd really welcome any advice/experience about what you think might happen - because I don't want to stop feeding unnecessarily if he will cope with the baby being fed when it's not on offer to him.
Hope that makes some sense - I'm not sure I've explained it very well.

Hello. I have two lovely (most of the time) children - DS is 3 next week and DD is 5.5 months. I breastfed DS until he was 2 (one or two feeds a day), and only stopped because breastfeeding became really painful. I was surprised but DS actually went cold turkey and didn't once complain. This meant that by the time DD was born DS hadn't had breastmilk for 6 months, and has never asked for my milk when he sees his sister feeding. Having said that, he always acts up (to a greater or lesser degree) when I'm feeding DS, I just have to hope she feeds quickly! I guess my advice would be to stop feeding a few months before your baby is due - just will make life easier IMO. Good luck.

You might find that your DS self weans during your pregnancy. My milk dried up around the 4 month mark and DD1 was not interested in dry nursing, so stopped by herself. She was just shy of 2. By the time DD2 arrived, she vaguely remembered having 'mummy milk', but thought it was something for younger children and isn't jealous at all.

I have a friend whose son self weaned when she was 7 months pregnant. Didn't show any jealousy, but has asked 2 or 3 times to nurse when the baby is. She said yes, but in two months he'd lost his latch, just said 'nothing is coming out' and wandered off asking for a snack.

I'm not sure if that answers your question, but it's just a couple of examples of what might happen even if you don't actively wean...

In my experience tandem nursing doesn't cause sibling jealousy. I've done both. DS1 weaned at a year when I was 17 weeks pg with DS2 and then DS2 nursed through my pregnancy and he and DD tandem nursed for over 2 years until he self-weaned.
I found tandem nursing to be a real boon at times as I was able to meet his needs emotionally and for contact very easily by briefly nursing him. He definitely wasn't ready to stop and i think it would have caused more problems if I'd made him wean and he'd felt pushed out. He was very good, at 20 months, at understanding that DD was only getting milk here as he had food too and so she had priority.
Might be worth reading this book BF while pg thread also might be helpful
Good Luck

Thanks for the replies. It feels difficult when you don't know how your particular child will respond - I'd happily carry on if I knew he'd self-wean before the baby was born, but am really not sure I want him still feeding then. I wouldn't mind tandem nursing in private, but am worried about being out and about with the baby and finding that ds wants milk as well - I'm not sure I'd cope with that, although I know that sounds quite pathetic on my part!

Similar experience to secondtime, though much later in my subsequent pregnancy. DD's last 'feed' was less than a week before her little brother was born.

She did ask for milk a few times, I offered it, but actually wasn't very interested and got bored.

In all honesty, she found things like him using her changing mat more difficult to deal with, which wasn't at all what I'd expected.

oh, I only ever nursed them once in front of people at the same time. And I hated it, made my skin crawl everytime (at home). DS2 waited his turn.
Another good book is how weaning happens