breast feeding 14 mo old

[darjeelingdarling]

looking for advice from long term feeding mammas!

I'm feeding on demand still though ds hasn't fully learnt how to request milk yet! So random whinging is often met with the offer of boob which sometimes seems to be what he wanted, other times a brief distraction and he forgets whatever it was (or he's just wanting cuddles / teething etc).

however, when with me, I always feed after a nap as he's often grumpy. seems to sort him out.

he was very on off about food when we started as illness and teeth threw him at the drop of a hat, we also had a bit of reflux / tt.

just after he was 1 and started to toddle he got into food in a big way - not all and any food but a nice range of actually quite healthy stuff.

my question is - is it still ok to just go with the flow and feed whenever if it's just before a meal? ime if it's what he likes he'll eat it immediately after a big feed, but dh gets stressy about it 'spoiling his appetite'. ds keeps doing a 2 hour mega nap from 11 ish so lunch either has to be early or when he wakes. but ds wants a snuggly feed then! dh is desperate for ds to eat more things, especially meat (he loves fish, used to chew on meat but has gone off it - I think because he can't actually chew it enough to swallow whereas fish is easily mashed with his incisors and tongue) he's teething a lot at the mo, plus starting to walk and trying to talk so I feel he just likes to eat what he knows! he'll try the odd thing but decide he doesn't want it. dh reckons he won't try new things if I've recently bf him.

I don't know if this helps at all, but I fed my dd until she was 14 months old. For the last few months I was just doing a first thing in the morning feed, a night time feed and one just before the nap after lunch. This used to work quite well. I had a friend who was still feeding her one year old 6 bottles of formula a day and wondering why she didn't want to eat food. I'm not saying this is the same thing at all, but i think there might be a risk that any baby that has milk of any kind on demand, may start to neglect food a bit. I certainly remember the Annabel kamel weaning book talking about reducing milk feeds when introducing solids, for what that's worth. I'm sure other long term bfing mums will be here to give more advice soon.
And well done you x

I have a 19 month DS who is very very similar to your DS. He still bf a lot. He has learnt to request it by not so politely pulling down my top and saying 'stuck'...

With regards to his appetite, I never found it made a huge impact if I bf directly before. It seems like DS wants his meals or he doesn't. Tonight he bf just before dinner and yet polished off every last bit. He probably doesn't want to eat much because he's teething. Bf is nice and comforting for him now. Just keep offering him healthy food and he'll eat how much he wants.

I would sporadically weigh him to make sure he's not dropping loads of weight betond the normal just-learnt-to-walk loss.

I'm still feeding my 19 month old. I haven't fed him before a meal (other than breakfast) since he was around 10 months and happily taking solids.

This is a rough outline of what our feeding, sleep and eating schedule is which might help:

6.45am breastfeed
7.30am breakfast
9.30 snack
11am lunch
11.30am - 1.30/2pm nap
2.30pm snack
5pm dinner
6.30pm breastfeed then bed

I do still breastfeed him on demand if he wants more and I'm around which is usually when he's a bit poorly or teething. He'll let me know he wants milk by using baby sign for it. He picked the sign up over a few weeks of me doing it and him copying whenever I nursed him. Might be worth a try? At the same time we started doing the baby sign for eat/food so he can now let us know which it is he wants.

thank you for your replies. I forgot to add we cosleep so there are some comfort feeds in the night.

Mycat, you describe what I see and experience - it makes no difference. and yes, he seems to find it extremely comforting when teething.

our routine is very similar to that normally, with the extra bf after his nap however it's hit and miss over whether he wants lunch or not!

I suppose it's been further complicated by literally several months of illnesses as he started nursery at 9 months and pretty much caught everything going. He also developed separation anxiety then, which has been continuing. I work 3 days a week too - so I also see the bf as a comfort / reconnect thing for him rather than simply 'food'.

I guess no child is the same either. I like to think there are no hard or fast rules to something so natural; it's just difficult when you know so few people who bf at this age. I'm in the lll but find it hard to attend meetings. maybe I should call a leader actually.