Talk to me about extended breast feeding!

[confusedfirsttimemum]

My original plan with DD was to aim to breastfeed to six months. That came and went and I said a year (so that I could skip formula altogether). Now she'll be 10 months soon and I don't think either of us is ready to stop.

Sooo, I have a few questions about extended breastfeeding. This is something I would never have even considered pre-MN, so thank you to all of you for that!

Firstly, did any EBFers out there find that their supply was ok when the day feeds were dropped? DD is normally doing one day feed now (all the others, about 4-5 in total) clustered morning and night. My friend went back to work at 7 months and gave formula in the day, and she said her supply dropped and she had to move to just formula quite quickly. DD will be nearly one, so more established. Did anyone have problems?

Secondly, if you EBF, is it still possible to choose to wean, or are you really committing to self weaning? A couple of people have said to me that it's very hard to wean a baby past one, so you should only continue if you're happy for it to be their choice to stop. Not sure if I believe this totally (although I can see that they get more opinionated!), but equally not sure I can totally committ to self weaning. I love breastfeeding now, but wouldn't rule out the possibility that two or so years down the line I might have had enough. This is particularly the case if/when we have more children. I was sooo exhausted in the first trimester last time that, if I had to committ to being up with DD for a feed first thing every day, I might not manage it.

Thanks guys. Probably daft questions, but no one I know in real life has ever breastfed past a year!

DS will be 3 in March and I'm still breastfeeding. My supply's been fine despite his feeding being erratic. Sometimes he'll have three or feeds during the day as well as morning and night, other times he'll forget anout boobs and go 24 hours without a feed at all, but apart from a slight drop a day or two before my period I've had no supply problems at all. We're self-weaning, so I've got no experience of weaning past one. Best of luck with it - breastfeeding a talkign baby/toddler is great fun (I recently had DS humming along to Jethro Tull through his nose while feeding )

The beauty of extended bfing is that you don't have to get up in the morning. My dd gets out of bed, wanders in, climbs under the covers and has a feed/snooze/play with us before we both/all get up.

My dd has always demand fed. She kept up night feeds until nearer 2yrs and only got down to morning and evening only at around 2.4. My supply has never been an issue and dd will go a day without feeding at all. Only slight dip is before my period but my periods returned when dd was 13 weeks old, so hasn't stopped me feeding obviously.

And you can negotiate with a bfing toddler. When you can talk to them and reason with them, in my experience you can negotiate a bfing pattern that suits everybody. DD still wanted to feed during the day day a couple of months ago and I talked to her about what she would like as an alternative because I would rather only do mornings and evenings and dd chose warm cow's milk. And dd is fine with 'not now' or 'later'.

I like extended bfing and like any other part of parenting, it's a relationship you can tailor to your own circumstances, wants or needs.

My DD will be 3 in March and is still breastfeeding. My older children all self-weaned at 15 months, pre MN, and I'll admit I didn't forsee that I'd still be BF a preschooler.

I work FT so DD doesn't have access to BF between 7am and 5.30pm during the week. She makes up for it at the weekends

Like the others have said, you can reason with an older toddler. Mine would still like to feed while we are out but can be told to wait till we get home, or distracted with juice or something to do.

LOL at the humming to Jethro Tull. I told mine she couldn't sing Baa Baa Black Sheep and feed, yesterday, and to pick one or the other

I chose to wean both my children when they were a little over 2.5. By that time they were both only having one feed a day (again, mostly my choice). I told them one week in advance that we would be stopping, and reminded them regularly. They were both sad for a day or two but no more than that - even though with dd I was still feeding baby ds.

So however long you breastfeed for, I'd say you can still choose to stop when you want to. It may be psychologically harder because they can be more vocal about what they want - certainly I was prepared for it to be very hard. But it wasn't.

Hello there

I didn't BF for that long really (14 months) but wanted to answer the questions in your post.

With us, the supply was fine all the way through. The feeds gradually reduced in number until at 14months she was having one feed every day first thing when she got up. No supply issues with that - your body adjusts naturally.

I went back to work when she was 14 months and didn't have the time in the morning to do everything (I am crap at getting up!). I just stopped offering and she never asked. I would have got up earlier if she was upset, or tried to switch to an evening feed instead, but she didn't seem fussed!

So there you go.

Also there was a woman on GMTV the other day who has written a book about extended BF - here I haven't read it but it sounds interesting.

Still bfing ds who is 23 months. I fed my first dd till about 10 months but was back at work and she just switched to bottles. DD2 I fed until she was just over 2 but then stopped as I was pregnant with ds and it was getting painful. With dd2 I just told her it was all gone. She protested for about a day or two and then settled to the idea. In fact I remember a few weeks later she was amused by the idea she ever got milk from mummy.

Re supple I think it just adjusts to demand really. Mine goes up when they feed a lot for example when they are ill. I'm minded to wean ds soon as he is a bit grabby in public but I'm putting it off because, in my experience, they get tummy bugs and other minor ailments for a bit after you give up. Would rather leave that till the spring.

Apologies for hijack. I started this thread for anyone who would be interested in a web chat with Ann Sinnott, author of Breastfeeding Older Children.

Thanks.

braid, that's interesting what you say about tummy bugs. DD is of a very robust constitution. She had norovirus when dh, all of his colleagues, my parents and my brother and his family were all struck down with it but got over it quite quickly (and bfing kept her hydrated) but other than that, no tummy bugs, the odd cold here and there but generally is of very sound health. I do worry that when she naturally weans she'll be more susceptible to illness. It's interesting that you note this does happen. Luckily, she's 2.8 and showing no signs of weaning.

I am still feeding my dd who is two and three quarters,I fed her older sister until she was two and a quarter,and throughout my second pregnancy.She chose to stop as she said it was for the baby and she was a big girl (!)Although I do wonder if she was also picking up on the fact I was unsure about tandem feeding (it was a few weeks before her sister was born) as she started asking to feed again at around four,although I didn't feed her.I find it easy and it makes my toddler happy,she feeds to sleep and then maybe once or twice (on a bad night)at night,and when she wakes up.My supply seems fine.I had it in my head that I would stop around three,as much to avoid sibling rivalry as any other reason,but I am not sure how to stop,I expect I will prepare her a while in advance and then gradually try and drop feeds.I think I will need advice then! All over the world babies are fed way beyond a year,and they all stop eventually so weaning after a year is clearly possible.I don't think I would go as far as Ann Sinnott and feed until six,mainly because I would be concerned about teasing once a child started school.I have no problem with anyone feeding a small child.Biologically it would seem we are designed to feed until around seven,and in many cultures five is normal,just sadly not ours.My GP asked me if I was doing it for my child or for me when my baby was only 18m old so it does get harder to deal with other people's attitudes.I have a friend who fed until her son was three and a half.So it's not freaky to me.Feed away,its good for your baby,its good for your health,and it makes your baby happy,why not?

I bfed ds until the week before his second birthday. Only did one feed a day from about 16 months (dropped the bedtime feed so that dh could put him to bed) so not on demand. Ds sort of self weaned; I had instigated dropping all but the morning feed, without too much complaint from him, but one morning he just decided he would rather have milk in a cup and never asked for bm again. I think that I could have chosen to stop feeding him with no fuss at all, so not true that you are definitely setting yourself up for self weaning, although I suppose it depends on the child!

I went back to work when he was 10 months and was just doing the evening and morning feeds - no problem with supply.

ShowOfHands, don't worry too much - ds has never had a tummy bug in his life (touch wood!) and has definitely not been more ill since I stopped feeding him. You might just have a robust dd!

I fed DS1 till he was about 3.9. He self-weaned when I was pregnant with DS2. He'd been feeding just morning and evening from about 11 months, iirc. Don't really know what my supply was like, but he seemed happy with it! Towards the end he didn't feed every day, and I'm pretty sure I could have weaned much earlier if I'd wanted to - but I liked the morning cuddles!

Oh, and I was just like the OP when I started - planned to do 6m, then 12m - had never even heard of natural term feeding before mumsnet!

I'm tandem nursing DD1 3.6 and DD2 10mths. At the moment DD1 nurses 2-5 times a day depending on what else is going on...she nurses more if we're around other older nurslings or if the baby is nursing in an amusing position that she wants to join in!

My supply has always been able to accomodate the rapid changes...DD1 has always nursed a lot, but when ill nurses constantly!

Tis lovely for them to be able to talk about it, mine have had names (milky and silky) and most endearingly is when my milk came in after DD2's birth was DD1 giving her a cuddle and saying thank you for bringing the milk back.

Ahhh Druid, that's so sweet of your DD1!

Thank you everyone, those comments have all been really interesting and helpful. I'm not sure about tandem feeding or, as I mentioned, feeding during a second pregnancy, so it's especially reassuring to hear from people who've continued and then encouraged stopping in the 2-3 bracket. Who knows, when the time comes, I might be really happy to continue (just like six months and 12...). Also good to hear about the option of making an active toddler come into bed for a nice quiet cuddle/nurse first thing. I hadn't thought of that one!

Puzzle - I would love to have Ann Sinnott on. I don't think I could go as far as she did, for many reasons (including shallow ones like wanting my body to be just mine at some point. I'm not sure I could do a decade or more of being pregnant and/or feeding if we have more than one child!), but I absolutely support her doing so and would love to have breastfeeding to at least 2 (in line with WHO) more publicised and accepted as a first step.

My DS is eight months and I would like to bf for as long as he wants to, happy to make it years. I am back at work full time, and at the moment I take my pump to work and pump several times a day in my office or car. I was wondering if anyone else has been in this position and when they stopped the pumping in the day at work and just fed when they were at home?

I'd only planned to bf for 6 months too cftm, but am now feeding my dd who will be 4 next week, my ds who is nearly 16 months, and am 19 weeks pregnant with number 3. Funny how things turn out!

Your supply should adjust fine. Tbh your friend's probably did too but she didn't want to sound like she'd switched to formula by choice. Or it might have been that her dc started to prefer bottles because she was used to having them most of the time.

Triple feeding. That's brave. What do you do when there are more nursing babies than boobs? .

Friend was quite upset about the feeding, so don't think it was choice. Might have been the preference thing though...

Well I've told dd that she has to stop when she turns 4, so hopefully I won't have to tri-andem! We've already cut her back to once a day, so fingers crossed weaning her fully will go okay. Though I think that by choice she would have it more often than ds, who is far less interested!

Good grief CSWS are you me !?! LOL

Except my DD is still on 2/3 feeds a day.

I am currently tandem feeding DS1 (2.8) and DS2 (11 wks). Like others, I never intended feeding this long - I was under the impression you were only 'supposed' to feed for 6 months and I was aghast when I heard of someone who fed their baby until 18 months! I started researching on mumsnet when I couldn't get DS1 to take a bottle and was fretting about going back to work and then realised that I didn't need to wean him at all and we could just carry on as we were.

I went back to work when DS1 was 11 months and my supply adjusted fine. He was used to being fed to sleep and wasn't really taking much in the way of solid food at that point but again, he adjusted fairly quickly to the change. We continued to feed on demand on my day off and at weekends (and at night, several times).

I'm have considered weaning DS1 at various points but never done anything serious about it. The positives still outweigh the negatives for me. I've just been through a tricky stage when DS2 came along but we are starting to settle down now and DS2 is asking for a feed much less frequently again now. He did night wean himself while I was pg but looking back I reckon it was because my milk supply had diminished so much, now its back he is waking 3 times a night for a feed again! (more frequently than the newborn..). I agree with others that you can negotiate with toddlers more, but DS1 is quite canny. We agreed that booby was 'just for bedtime', but he now fakes a yawn and says 'mummy, I am SOOOO tired, I think I should go to bed'. The little tinker

I only wish I knew more mums (just one would do!) in RL who were extended breastfeeders, as it does feel quite lonely sometimes.

preggers - have you looked for a nearby la leche league group? That's how I made lots of my extended feeding RL friends.

Hi CantSleep, no I haven't but its a great idea, I think I will look into it. Thank you for the tip.

I decided when dd was about 18 months that I didn't want to bf her in public any more. Not because I was ashamed of it in any way, but I didn't want her to be the focus of attention, good or bad. So i said to her that "milky" (her word for it) was for home only, and I offered her an alternative of some sort if we asked when we were out. It worked fine - no problem.

OP - I think the "its difficult weaning from the breast past 12 months" is bunkum. I weaned my first then based on being told that, and regretted it. MY next 2 DC I fed until 18 months, when they self-wened-with-a-bit-of-encouragement (as I have complicated pg with hospital admissions and dehydration, and wanted to get pg again, I knew that tandem feeding wasn't for me.) They only did morning and evening feeds (unless ill) from a year onwards.

Just go with the flow - literally!