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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Extended BFers - I need some advice!

4 replies

ReshapeWhileDamp · 27/04/2010 16:51

I breastfed DS until almost exactly 2 years, 1 month. He was beginning to lose interest, and by the point at which we stopped, he was having a feed every 2 days or so. We'd stopped bedtime feeds at Christmas (he has a bottle of cow's milk) and he wasn't really having a regular feed in bed with me in the morning by the time we stopped. Mostly, he sleeps through, so I wasn't feeding at night either. I know, lucky me!

I gave him what I thought was his last feed on wednesday a couple of weeks ago. I was planning on going to Spain for 3 nights the next day, leaving him with my parents. Since we were on a feed every couple of days by then, I thought this would be a good place to draw the line. As it happened, I couldn't travel because of the ASH , so I stayed home with him, and when he woke with inexplicable hysterics at the weekend, he had a very atypical feed in bed with me because it was the only way I could get him to go back to sleep and please stop screaming...

That was over a week ago. And I thought we'd stopped. But he's mentioned 'buda' (his word for BF) every single day since, more than when he was having the odd suck every couple of days. And I've been very conflicted about this. On one hand, I think I ought to be consistent and not confuse the poor chap, but on the other, he clearly misses it, he's asked for it a lot (I've been saying it's all gone and he accepts it, but he's 2 - it makes sense for half a day and then he asks again).

So this afternoon, I offered him the boob when he was upset, post-nap. He was v happy to see it, clung to it like a drowning man - 5 seconds on each and he hopped off my lap, happy and perked up.

Sorry, this is rambly and self-indulgent! In a nutshell: I stopped breastfeeding at 2 years and have re-started because it felt cruel to my son, who's been asking for it ever since. Has anyone been this 'infirm of purpose' and re-started bf after they thought they'd stopped?

Oh, and I'm pregnant, just. I know it doesn't have any bearing on mcs, but that's something else to throw in the mix, I suppose.

Shared experiences? Advice? Slaps round the head?

OP posts:
cleanandclothed · 27/04/2010 16:53

Sympathy. Have you seen my thread here? This is exactly what I think will happen to me!

CantSleepWontSleep · 27/04/2010 17:06

It doesn't sound abnormal to me. Why not try the 'don't offer, don't refuse' technique for a while and see how you go?

Being pregnant shouldn't matter, except that he's perhaps more likely to give up by himself at some point during your pregnancy.

fwiw, I fed my dd right through my pregnancy with my ds, and until i was 5 months pregnant with my third, am now just feeding 18 month old ds, but will resume tandem feeding with him and the new baby in a couple of months. No problem!

mjinhiding · 27/04/2010 17:13

This reply has been deleted

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ReshapeWhileDamp · 27/04/2010 17:21

Thanks, everyone!

I'm not planning to feed him throughout pregnancy, but I do wonder what the future will hold - having stopped and found I was pregnant, some part of me feels really daft for starting again when I didn't have to. But I do love being able to offer him comfort like that, and he loves it too. I still have some milk although very little, I'd have thought. And yes, I think I will do the 'never refuse, never offer' thing with him, and try for a more natural break with it. It just seemed quite arbitrary to stop because I was going to Spain, and I think it unsettled him a bit. And of course, in the end I didn't even go abroad, so as far as he's concerned, there wasn't even a break in regular routine - I just stopped.

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