Extended bf and having the second child soon after the first - how does it work?

[hm32]

Is feeding through pregnancy ok? If I'm not getting periods, will I be able to conceive? Would I be able to express perhaps through pregnancy and then express off extra for the first child whilst bf the second? Not desperately keen on the idea of a suckling toddler, but do think the immune benefits of extended bf would be good to have.

You can safely bf right through pregnancy. And having the immediate peace of feeding a toddler is fabulous, so I'd say don't close your mind to it, just take things as they come

Yep, you can BF through pregnancy and out the other side if you want to! There are a lot of tandem BFers on this forum. I'm BF both my DDs. You can wean any time you like, or just play it by ear and see how you go. Some women get on fine with Bf during pregnancy, others hate it- it's very personal. There's loads of info here about tandem feeding.

I never set out to BF a toddler, it just sort of happened. Taking things as they come is probably the best plan! You don't have to have a set time you want to wean, you can just take it one day at a time.

I think it depends how close together you're wanting them, but it's definitely possible to conceive when BF - I have 5 friends who have done just this, one who had a surprise pregnancy when her first DC was 11 months old, two who got pregnant when their first DC was 18mths-2 years ish, and two whose DC were between 2 and 3 when they conceived but still breastfeeding fairly often. None of them did anything special.

If you want them very close together it might be necessary to partially wean for a short time to kick start your menstrual cycle again - restricting to bedtime only for a few days or a weekend away should be enough, although it might take a bit to get your supply back up again when you return if your baby is very little.

I did it. It was lovely to see DS1 and DS2 feeding together. DS used to stroke Ds2's head and say that he was going to teach him how to breastfeed and they even had their own sides.

DS1 self-weaned at 2.9 years but DS2 hasn't got around to self-weaning yet and he'll be 4 next month. Like you I didn't set out to feed this long, it just sort of happened.