Anyone interested in an 'extended' bfers support thread?

[lilysma]

Not sure what I mean by 'extended' exactly - maybe it's a self defined thing?

I define myself as an 'extended' bfer because I hardly know anyone else bfing a child as old as mine (DD is 26 months) and feel the need to discuss some issues with people also doing this and wonder if anyone else does??

Anyone up for an informal support thread on this?

Pickelemumma - I too am self employed, employment law doesn't apply. They can't force me to go. Just disappointed to be missing out on all the fun!

Sassy - My DH is the same!
I told him to stop going on about it the other day and that I would stop when DD was ready.
I just ignore him now.
DD is a boob monster aswell.
Most guys just dont get it.

My DH has said a couple of times, well it would be weird if DD was still nursing when she is . However when we get to that age, he has changed his mind.

Now DD is 3 years old and not showing any signs of weaning, I am guessing 1 year old DS will wean before her.

My 2.5 year old DD was weaned on Monday, there haven't been too many tears. We'd cut down very very gradually and as long as we're busy, so far she doesn't get upset.

I feel great that we made it this far as I encountered a lot of negativity when she was a newborn/young baby and then DH started to think I was "giving in" to her too much and thought I should wean her, this was a few months ago. And I can blow an great big raspberry to all those who said that I was making a rod for my own back!

I just felt that the time was right for me to end BFing. Who'd have thought I'd look back on the 4am feeds with wistfulness

BouncingTurtle - DS (19mo) was going 8-5.30 in his own bed for a while then coming in for a feed but he recently started coming in around midnight and helping himself every couple of hours, getting more frequent.

We're TTC at the moment and I can't face the idea of this when I manage to get pregant, so we're night weaning him now (I just had enough in the middle of the night!)

We've done 3 nights and last night we had about 20 minutes of tantrum when he first came in then a brief 5 minute stirring at 5.30. Both times he fell asleep on me, with some patting and cuddling (he likes to lie right across my chest, face down with his head on my boob, but eventually wriggles / is gently pushed over into the middle of the bed). In the end he slept till 7am, which is unheard of if he's not ill!

It seems to be getting easier quite quickly and I'm very optimistic that it will work, although I think he'll end up in our bed more often, which is fine for the moment so long as he starts the night off in his own (we like those few hours to sprawl!)

I suppose I'm an extended BFer now, as DD's 13 months old? So I'll say hello and will read all those pages later!

Welcome Jenbot!

ChairmumMiaow - that sounds promising!

We have a gate across his bedroom door so he can't come in to our room,but we go into him and most nights one of us ends up sleeping in the bed with him! Last night was DH's turn

Really would like to night wean him but I think there is the additional problem of not wanting to sleep on his own. DH has advocated moving DSS in with him but I have vetoed that plan. DSS is 6 years older than DS and I think he should have his own room, and I know that DSS will take over DS's room if he had to share, insisting on having his TV in there and hiding himself away like he does, which I am firmly against for ds - I do NOT want him to have a TV in his room.

Besides - DSS is only up for a weekend every 2 weeks, so it would not be much help having DSS sleep with him if he isn't there most of the time!

BT - it does seem to be working. Last night he slept through till 5 then got up when he heard me in the loo and came in to me there. I took him back to our bed and he grumbled pretty quietly and tried to get to sleep for an hour. I fed him at 6 though and he went back to sleep for an hour - too late for me though!

We're quite happy having him in with us (when he's asleep he's fine, he only kicks when he's trying to get to sleep!) so we don't care whether he spends the night in his own bed, just that he starts it there so we get a bit of time to ourselves.

can I join? DS is 18 months and a monster for the milk, I plan to let him self wean.

am watching your night weaning progress with interest chairmummiaow as i am currently up the duffers with number 2 and am not sure that i can be dealing with BF two babies all night.

My DH doesn't seem to mind the BF so much but the co sleeping is driving him mad. I do know DS needs to go in his own room if only to make room for the next one but I can't face the idea of having to get out of bed 5 times a night to get him back to sleep.

anyone got any more fantastic stories of easy night weaning to cheer me up?

whatinthewhatnow - the night weaning has been dead easy. A bit stressful with the screaming for the first few nights but trouble free since then. I think we were just all ready.

However, although it has improved sleep for all of us, it hasn't stopped DS waking up. He generally goes to sleep in his own bed but is always in with us at some point. he asks for milk and grumbles for a bit while falling asleep but doesn't make too much fuss. We're both happy with the idea of him in with us for the long term though.

He has slept through twice - once in a hotel when he didn't go to sleep till 10pm and once when he went to sleep in our bed. mornings are better too as he generally sleeps till 6 instead of 5ish!

so not a magic bullet but worth it for us

whatinthewhatnow - the night weaning has been dead easy. A bit stressful with the screaming for the first few nights but trouble free since then. I think we were just all ready.

However, although it has improved sleep for all of us, it hasn't stopped DS waking up. He generally goes to sleep in his own bed but is always in with us at some point. he asks for milk and grumbles for a bit while falling asleep but doesn't make too much fuss. We're both happy with the idea of him in with us for the long term though.

He has slept through twice - once in a hotel when he didn't go to sleep till 10pm and once when he went to sleep in our bed. mornings are better too as he generally sleeps till 6 instead of 5ish!

so not a magic bullet but worth it for us

Chairmum, I night weaned ds around easter time, and he still wakes at night too! But usually it is only once in the night and then he is settled in moments compared to non stop feeding marathons before!! So, although i don't get a full night's sleep, it is such an improvement on before that I feel relatively ok in the morning. That's as far as I will go becuase even before ds and 10hrs every night, I still felt shite in the morning!!!

Poor DS has croup just now. A couple of days ago he didn't even want to feed, but now he's back to it with a vengance. I felt slightly engorged for the first time in years which is a strage feeling after all this time! I really thought my milk supply was dwindling away to nothing with my pregnancy, but apparently not! Although in an unscientific manner, I have noticed that it is much more watery looking than before.

Hello again all, back to report that early jubliation at night weaning = no waking for all lasted about 3 weeks (3 whole weeks of sleep if I hadn't spent it sitting up on the damned internet to silly o'clock!) and DS started waking at half 4 again. Is now able to verbalise that he wants 'a bit, mummy!' which is not the sort of emotional blackmail a mummy needs at weak o'clock, but am endeavouring to stay strong and wrap myself in that duvet to prevent him helping himself. This is working, but have to undergo about an hour of the little devil
darling thrashing about and inadvertently headbutting me, or knowing that he is only half asleep and waiting to pounce as soon as he knows I'm nodding off! Easy as it would be to give in, am having to consider just putting him back in his bed, but I do like having a little lie down with him, despite all this! On the good side, he is now much more able to have a discussion with, so am attempting to use reasoning . Good night all!

picklemama - that is really interesting that it lasted three weeks.

Any time I tried drastically tinkering with my ds's demand feeding (either trying night weaning, or cutting back to morning/bedtime) he was fine for exactly three weeks, and then all hell broke lose.

After three weeks, I noticed that his daytime behaviour became intolerable, which was a shock because he was normally so placid.

You probably don't want to hear that I sorted it almost instantly by going back to night feeding or day feeding, whichever one I had cut out at the time.

Hello everyone, I am new here so please be gentle. I am still breastfeeding dd who is 4.5, please don't give me any grief, I get too much of that from dh. Usually she only feeds once a day. I know I should stop, but at the moment we are both still enjoying her once a day feed. It is lovely to read all of your messages on this post.

RedAction, the short answer is that different mums do different things whilst tandem nursing.

I decided to give my daughter (who was 2 years old when her brother arrived)milk on demand as normal during the day and as she was already night weaned I offered a cup of water at night as normal. She went off solids and practically back to milk full time for the first couple of weeks but then built up her solid intake again.

I found the first few months very time consuming in terms of amount of nursing I did and I had days when I wouldn't let my cats or husband near me, as it was enough to feed a newborn 24 hours a day and a toddler 12 hours a day. That said my daughter adjusted very well to her sibling and I wonder if part of the reason was her continuing to have milk as normal.

That said I know a RL mum who had rules from the start when her older nurseling could nurse. Two/three times a day I seem to remember and she reported that worked well for her daughter.

It is likely that your baby will slow down the number of feeds shortly and this will give you some valuable you time.

There is a thread for support during nursing whilst pregnant and tandem nursing on Mumsnet I'll link to HERE.

Hi sarahloopylou - glad you found your way over here!

Boo to your dh for not being supportive. Mine started muttering along those lines a while back, but I soon put him right. Nursing seems to suit him when it means he doesn't have to get up in the night or early in the morning or deal with ds's tantrums (not that he has many tbh)

You say you know you should stop, but you both still enjoy it. So is it outside pressure making you feel like you should stop? You are doing nothing wrong by continuing to nurse. Nothing wrong at all, but it is a bit crap when people make out like you are some kind of weirdo.

Is there a LLL ot other breastfeeding support group near you? Our LLL group meetings alternate between focussing on younger babies one meeting, and then on older babies/toddlers at the next. My ds is probably the oldest nursling there now (I can't even really call him a toddler any more!!) but I know there are mothers there who fed their older children to age 4 and older, so it is nice just to be able to talk about things without having to justify myself.

One word of advice about MN. If you venture outside the breast/bottle feeding threads there are some people who just don't get it about extended/natural term feeding, and they can be particularly vile about it, so beware - unless you are up for a good ding dong!

HTH

Sarahloopylou - you shouldn't get any grief here and if you do we'll see 'em off!

We had an interesting weekend with disapproval from MIL and SIL so clear even DH spotted it. Not sure if it was just the feeding or the fact that DS didn't eat much when we were out, prefering milk instead. (this is standard when we are in strange places with strange people)

I am sooo glad I found this thread. I haven't read it all, but I skimmed through a lot of it. Sorry if I end up asking something that's already been discussed at length.

I am bf my 22 month old ds and it looks like I have been worrying unnecessarily about lots of things that I now realise are just normal - such as refusal to take a bottle (I have never really tried to wean him, but I have tried to at least get him onto EBM or one bottle of formula a day, all without success), extreme frequency of feeds, difficulty with night-waking, fiddling (he likes playing with my moles which I am not very happy about - although he has at least stopped the rubbing and is more gentle now).

I love the positive approach that many of you seem to have developed towards the small irritations, and your decision to focus on the big picture - i.e. that this is the right and natural thing to do, and something to be proud of. It's easy to forget that when one does not know many people, if at all, still bf in RL. I have friends who bf till 18 months or so, but only one who went beyond (4).

I do have a LLL toddler group relatively close so I should definitely go to the next meeting.

I also have a practical question. In one months' time, I am forced to leave him for (at least) one night and a day because of a work trip that I can't get out of (I know you have been discussing a similar issue just now - I am a small business owner so I could in theory not go, but it's getting harder and harder to explain to clients that I can't leave my ds overnight).

Has anyone been away from their bf toddler for 24 hours or even 48 hours - and do you have any advice on how to minimise the trauma? DS falls asleep without bf in the evening and during the day at the childminders', but I still feed him once per night (I schedule the feed rather than feeding on demand - as I have found this helps to reduce the number of nightly feeds, which at one point a few months ago were once every hour and half).

He feeds often during the day, but if he is with other people (childminder, DH, etc) the principle "out of sight, out of mind" seems to apply...

I went away for my sisters hen do over night (away for nearly two days with the travelling) I remember I was pregnant so my nursing toddler would of been around 20 months at the time.

I really worried how she would cope without me but as I was the matron of honor/chief bridesmaid thingy I had to organise everything and go.

I choose to express milk in the previopus couple of mornings, so DH had several bottles of EBM for her. But in the end she took a cup of water, never asked for milk, DH didn't offer and she waited happily for milk until I was home. I took a hand pump in case I got too uncomfortable but I don't remember pumping.

TBH with my second currently 1 year old, if he was nearly 2, I don't think I would leave any expressed milk (I never tried him with a bottle, he uses a cup for water and juice) and I would hand express if I got uncomfortable.

Could you do a trial overnight absence at a local friends house and if there is any problems you would be able to get home quickly ?

gemmanc OMG - MOLES. DS2 picks them til they bleed. Drives me nuts.

I was away from DS overnight when he was 17 months as I ended up in hospital unexpectedly. He was fine. Even now (2.4) he's much like your DS. If I'm not there he doesn't ask and doesn't seem bothered

Gemma - I'm probably (can't quite make up my mind to do it yet) leaving DS overnight on friday. He's 20 months and does most things happily without milk - so long as I am not there!

He's been 12hrs with DH before and been fine, and regularly goes places with his auntie. He normally feeds to sleep but will settle for DH or I after a feed if he's lost interest or if I have had enough!

We're planning to leave him with his auntie and cousins before dinner then get him some time in the morning. He's been night weaned about 3 weeks and that's going ok (although teething at the moment so can get grumpy in the middle of the night I haven't felt it was bad enough to offer milk until we've been night weaned longer)

I think I need some moral support on this one - mostly if I bring it up people will just tell me to leave him, he'll be fine - but of course they've never dealt with a breastfed toddler. He'll only be literally round the corner so we can go and fetch him if he's really unhappy, but I feel like its time to take the step. I just can't quite make myself say yes!

thanks for your replies - this is all very helpful. Do you think I should night wean him before going on the trip? It's in a months' time so I suppose I could manage. I had almost managed before the holidays, but he's now waking up again for milk overnight.

WoTmania, I'm sorry about the moles bleeding. DS did that a couple of times too but I am really trying to stop that because I am paranoid about moles. It's hard, though.

Chairmum, I know how you feel! Has your auntie ever settled him to sleep before, e.g. for naps?

And Babies....yes the trial overnight stay with friends is a good idea actually. I should probably do that to see what happens. I've tried to pretend being away before - i.e. say goodbye at the door, go out for a bit and come back when he's in bed asleep but he still wakes up and screams at some point in the night, and it's really hard for dh to settle him. He probably doesn't yet understand that mummy can be away overnight too (just like daddy does sometimes)...