Stopping breastfeeding when a toddler

[llareggub]

My DS is 2.5 years old and I also have a 4 week old baby. I am tandem feeding and finding it to be very hard work. Today, my toddler latched on and all I felt was pain. Is there the slightest possibility that he is losing the ability to breastfeed?

I am also wondering if I can help him along the path to stopping completely because I am starting to struggle with both. Is there a way to help him stop? I don't particularly want to do it just yet but I can do it gradually it is something I'd like to consider.

Any advice?

Any advice...we're getting desperate!

Sorry to hear things are painful at the moment.

You can ask your toddler to open wide before latching and make sure he is latched properly. I find my toddler gets a bit sloppy at times and doesn't take enough breast and it gets painful.

If he is teething, apply gel to his gums before nursing.

If you want to cut down frequency of nursing session for toddler. Try saying when asked for milk "Yes, in 5 minutes" or offer a drink/snack. Or limit nursing session to a count of 10 (as fast/slow as you like)

{{{Hugs}}} Tandem nursing is very interesting. Full of wonderful moments and times when I want to stop nursing everyone NOW !!!

BTW my nurselings are 9 months old (DS) and 2.9 years (DD) so I do understand.

Thanks, that is helpful.

At the moment he wants to feed when the baby feeds, which is a lot. This evening hasn't been too bad but he is now asking for it when we are out, which he hasn't done for about a year.

Oh, I don't know. Some days I really wish I'd stopped feeding him at 1 year but other days I know how much he gets from it and I'm glad.

You might be right about his latch, but DS2 has been diagnosed with tongue tie which hasn't bothered either of us so far but maybe it his him not DS1. I'll try your method tomorrow and see what happens.

My DD (like your toddler)wanted to nurse as frequently as my newborn and indeed cut back on her solids as she had so much milk. She also started asking for milk more often out and about. Which she did/does occassionally anyway but the requests definately increased.

I decided to go with the flow and try and meet her requests as much as I could. I think she went down to her normal milk feeds when her baby brother was 5 or 6 months old.

That said she loves him to pieces and tells me when he needs 'ink'