Experiences of tandem feeding a toddler and new born please

[BlueC2]

I'm currently 35 weeks and have been utterly unsuccessful in weaning my 2yr old from his bedtime breastfeed during my pregnancy, in fact he has even had the odd extra feed in the night when he has been upset or had sore teeth/been unwell. He's still pretty keen on his bedtime feed, though a lot of it may just be the comfort of snuggly time with mummy. I've got him down to 2.5min each side but at times he asks for more and is very insistent/gets v upset if I say no.

So, I plan to ebf baby when he/she arrives in a few weeks and am wondering what challenges I may have in store. What do I do in the days before my milk comes in? Surely baby will need all of the colostrum or will my body just produce extra if DS drinks some of it? Once I got into a rhythm with DS I was pretty strict about one side each feed as I had an abundant milk supply and this helped to manage it (I got mastitis 3 times so had to be v careful balancing supply and demand). I only switched to DS having both sides at a feed when I was down to morning and evening feed only. This could all go a bit wrong with baby though if baby having just one side and DS having a bit of both?! I also stuck to a routine/schedule rather than on demand, after a few weeks once we'd settled into a pattern.

Just trying to get my head around all of this a bit before baby arrives so any experiences, advice etc from those who've been there before would be great! Many thanks

For the first couple of weeks I found tandem nursing emotionally quite draining (DD feed almost as much as the baby) but physically it actually made breastfeeding a lot easier as engorgement wasn't a problem. I think I restricted DD to feeds every 4 hours or so which was enough to stop me from feeling too touched out.

After that, it was a really lovely experience, and I think that having them both feed together really helped them to bond, and I got into a routine where I would feed them both and we would all have am afternoon nap.

The day 3 baby blues were really horrible though, so be warned. I was convinced that tandem nursing was a terrible mistake and I would never cope, and I couldn't bear to feed DD. That soon passed.

molly thanks for your reply... how old was you dd when baby was born? Not sure I can cope with thought of feeding DS that much again but that might easier than the tantrums we could get if he decides he wants milk that often

DD was almost 3 at that point, but was unusually boob-obsessed. She isn't really typical of tandem nursing toddlers, although they do terms to want to feed a lot once your mum comes in because it is so yummy and plentiful. You can always say no, and make whatever guidelines you are comfortable with.

molly my DS is a bit of a milk monster so could well decide he wants extra too :)

Hi, I tandem fed for over 2 years. generally a positive experience, but felt a bit "antsy" at times feeding my toddler.
Tandem feeding is great at bringing in milk quickly for the newborn, and will help ease engorgement. I was careful in the early days to offer the lion's shre of the milk to the newborn.

Remember colostrum and plentiful supply of new milk is very laxative for a toddler. You have been warned.

deepblue I think we've already experienced the laxative effect a couple of times with DS as my milk has changed during pregnancy! This is where not having potty trained yet does have it's benefits although does mean we will need to sort the nappies which us always fun!

I think I've decided that the golden rule will always be 'baby first' and then DS can have some. I'm also trying to drop into conversation about how DS used to have only milk before he started to have big boy food and that baby will need to have milk in that way too... Etc etc.

moresnow you must be exhausted! The few nights where DS has woken a lot have totally wiped me out, I can't imagine dealing with him that much in the night, I'm a zombie half the time anyway as not sleeping well. Hope the co-sleeping plan works for you.

I found starting to feed a newborn when I was already feeding a toddler a much easier experience than feeding from scratch iyswim. No issues with painful nipples, no engorgement, could latch them both on at once if I wanted to as the toddler was v bendy, no horrific hormonal surge that made me miserable. It was the easiest of all my three breastfeeding experiences. Toddler fed a bit more than usual to start with, but soon went back to just at bedtime and morning.