If you weaned your toddler during pregnancy

[BertieBotts]

And they had a special word for breastfeeding, did you use the same word or a different word for the new baby breastfeeding and did it make any difference?

Just wondering.

DS2 is 2.10 and pretty much weaned now. He still likes the idea of breastfeeding, which he calls "mimi" but he doesn't actually really do it any more and is quite happy to go to sleep lying in my arms instead. But he doesn't like to think that he has stopped and does still ask for it regularly. If you say he's too big then he says no I am not too big. If I point out that he doesn't really drink it any more, he says "I really drink it mummy" in a hurt voice :o Sometimes he will sort-of latch on, but not actually drink any milk. Other times he will ask for it but then ask to wait "for ten minutes" and then is asleep in anywhere from 4-6 minutes. (He is a very precise child.) Or he just wants to be in the right position and say sleepily "Mimi, mimi, mimi" while drifting off to sleep. It's almost like the concept of "mimi" has evolved from the milk itself to a particular kind of mummy-cuddle.

I am due with DC3 in 2 months. We have been explaining that the baby will also need to have mimi, because the baby won't be able to eat food. I did expect DS2 to keep feeding - but am quite happy that he has weaned as I had started to get aversion about it.

Anyway. I don't especially want DS2 to get jealous of the baby feeding, or have a sudden need to start breastfeeding again all hours of the day and night. I'm aware this might happen anyway,but I thought I'd see what others did in the same situation.

I'm thinking it might be best if we keep "mimi" as DS2's special word and don't use it to describe feeding the baby. I was thinking we could just say that the baby is drinking some milk or having mummy milk, something like that.

My children all invented their own words for breast feeding.

Sorry that wasn’t very clear . I mean each child made up their own word, we didnt choose it and we didn’t use that word for the next child.

In your situation I would NOT use mimi for feeding the new baby.

Yes I'm sure they will. But the baby won't be able to talk when it's first born so I am thinking about how to refer to it to DS2.

I might be totally overthinking!

Aah crossposted :) Thank you. That's my gut feeling.

Why do you need to refer to it to DS?

You don’t need to make a big deal of it. Half the time a toddler won’t even notice a new born feeding, baby will just be having a cuddle.

Newborn babies are very boring and you don’t want to spend much of your energy trying to make your toddler interested in her / him.

I just assumed it would come up in conversation at some point TBH.

It’s not quite your situation but I was amazed to find how quickly DC1 forgot about bf once baby arrived. She stopped though when I was about 4mo preg, as milk changed, and by time baby arrived she had no memory of doing it all, looked almost disgusted when I pointed out she ever did it! Was 2yr 9mo then. I had worried that she’d be jealous and want to start feeding etc.

I’d agree, just start calling it milk for baby. And I think if you’re not keen on feeding both, this is totally ok, it could be worth using the remaining weeks to gently discourage. Could you start a new concept of a mimi cuddle, since that seems to be where he is going? (That is an adorable image btw of him drifting off )

I stopped bf toddler when I was 20 weeks pregnant he transitioned on to gallons of soya milk instead and within a few weeks forgot about bf as looked shocked when baby was feeding and kept offering her his bottle !