Should I wean my 18 month old before baby 3 comes or tandem feed?

[MrsHf]

Currently pregnant with baby no 3 and still breastfeeding my DD 18months old. I had planned to keep feeding her even when the baby comes as I had no plans to stop feeding before 2 and fed my eldest until he was 2.5. But the last few weeks have started to be really difficult, I’m finding it painful to feed her and getting the occasional feeding aversion if she’s feeding too long. Also feeding her over night doesn’t seem to have the same effect as she used to just feed for a few minutes then go straight back to sleep but now once she has the boob she won’t come off again without waking up and crying so I’m feeding her for an hour or two overnight, not every night but the nights that she does I feel like I’m at my wits end.
I’m starting to worry that I’m just not going to cope with feeding a newborn and a toddler but the thought of weaning her is making me so sad as I know it’s such a comfort to her and I was hoping to be able to ease the transition into having a new sibling by being able to give her the comfort of the boob. Does anyone have any experience of tandem feeding positive or negative? I just don’t know how hard it will be and if I’m setting myself up to fail if I keep feeding her.

I stopped at 14 months because I was pregnant again. I wanted the newborn to have the same exclusive experience DC1 had had. Not logical maybe but it felt important to me.

There's no right answer though. Tandem feeding is very possible and it's really only about what feels right to you.

I think it is an entirely individual choice but it is fine not to BF all of the DC for the same length of time, especially your first when you had the luxury of only having to look after one tiny person

It doesn’t sound as though night feeding is working particularly well for either of you at the moment though with the increased time and soreness for you. Have you considered doing some gentle night weaning then seeing how you feel?

It sounds like you're not enjoying it any more, which IMO makes it the right time to stop. I understand that as I stopped feeding DC1 when I got pregnant with DC2.

Two of mine self-weaned during pregnancy - quite a few friends had a similar experience. But if you are struggling, it is okay to do things differently with different children! I always felt I should do things for one as I had done for the other, but by number 3 I realised that their upbringings are different because circumstances are different. Number 3 was very different to number 1 because I had two others to look after. But I was also less stressed. And less anxious.

Do what works for you both in that specific situation and don't worry about being equal. In our house we still talk about equality Vs equity - everyone getting the same Vs everyone getting what they need, which may be different.....

For me it would depend how far along you are. If you still have some months to go before the baby arrives, I would try to gradually and gently wean her and stop feeding to sleep if you are doing that.
If the baby will come soon, I wouldn't take that comfort away from her in addition to the other changes. For the night wakings, if there's another parent who can try and settle her before you start feeding her, I would try that.

I don’t think there’s a right answer to this. I had HG when I was pregnant so I weaned my eldest because I felt it was too much for me (although I know some HG suffers do carry on) but if I didn’t have HG I would have been very happy to carry on and I still even now (a year later) feel sad about it. My general course of action if I can’t decide something is to just carry on… you will get difficult behaviour when baby gets here no matter what you do, so there’s not really a way out of that except patience and lots of empathy for your child and yourself

I am so pleased I did wean. Currently ebf my 11 week old baby and he is a cluster feeder and a comfort feeder and a general I want the boob all day feeder. I think I would have felt overwhelmingly touched out if I was dealing with them both on the boob at this time. I'm averaging 4 or 5 hrs sleep a night max and I'm just exhausted this time round. Plus I had a section and really awful recovery, my toddler could never have leant on me to feed, I was in agony. Sounds like it's the right time to stop for you too x

Also are you realistically going to be able to feed your DD for 2 hours in the night as well as feeding a newborn on demand ? I can't even imagine that. Maybe focus on cutting out the night feed if you still want to bf her during the day x

This exactly how I feel about my second baby, that I have to try to do everything the same. It can be quite hard.

Thanks for everyone’s messages! I’ve taken the advice of feeding overnight doesn’t seem sustainable so have now night weaned and she’s done really well with it! 5 nights of no overnight feeds and she just wakes up has some water and a cuddle and goes back to sleep. Then let her feed during the day as much as she likes. I think I’ll carry this on once baby comes if she doesn’t wean herself before then. Currently 20 weeks pregnant and she’s not shown any signs of weaning or going off the milk yet! Definitely have noticed colostrum coming in so the milks changed but not put her off yet. Not feeding overnight has made a massive difference to how I feel feeding her now, I feel like it’s given me a bit of a break and not making me so sore too.

As you have perhaps as many as 20 weeks left you could try never offer never refuse during the day and try to limit it to once a day in a specific situation, which would be something you could keep up once the baby is born. Feeding on demand might not work then because you’ll have to put the tiny baby first.

I think if you’re really struggling it makes sense to taper down or wean. I did tandem feed for a couple of months but mine was a bit younger. I also had aversions so I’d only let him feed for a few minutes or less at a time and then I’d say ‘all done’ and unlatch him with my finger if he didn’t unlatch himself, my milk had pretty much dried up by then so he actually didn’t mind. When I gave birth the aversions went and the toddler was actually quite useful to help drain full boobs! But then randomly a couple of months later the aversions returned but only when the toddler was latched so I weaned him then. It was really easy as I’d tapered the feeds right down and he wasn’t feeding much at all by then!

Glad that the night weaning has gone well.

Agree tgat you’ve got 20 weeks to go, or thereabouts, so you might want to do do as a PP suggests and start on the never offer, never refuse method or refucing daytime feeds.

One thing o also dod was to only feed in one place during the day, then never, ever sit there unless I was feeding.