I love your blog. I’m the mother of three amazing little boys, 4 year old twins and a 7 1/2 month old. I’m breastfeeding the 7 1/2 month old. I only breastfed the twins for 2 months, they were premature (in the NICU for a month) and I was worried they weren’t getting enough after they came home. I felt guilty I didn’t do it longer. So, I was quite determined to make breastfeeding work for the new baby. I love breastfeeding him. It was kind of crazy around here at first, with three children 3 years old and under, but we have found our grove (kind of). I can’t wait to read your blog when your new baby arrives!
I wrote a while ago about nursing a toddler and not getting pregnant. I am interested to see that you continue to nurse and know how much toddlers can love it. Yesterday my 2.5 year old fell into some stinging nettles and the only thing that make her feel better was some “milk from Mama’s body”. I still worry that nursing is preventing me from getting pregnant for a second time, but not to the point that I would wean her just to see. If I weaned her before she was ready and I still didn’t get pregnant, I would be a mess, a guilty mess.
Tell me, does the nipple tenderness pain subside as you get farther in pregnancy?
Im am pregnant with my second baby, 18 weeks, and have been dry nursing my my 15 month old son for two weeks, did your supply diminish? i am hoping to get some colostrum or SOMETHING in soon.
I don’t have kids yet and I don’t really know how long I will breastfeed (fingers crossed I will be able to because I really, really want to!), and I can’t imagine doing it past around the 2 year age mark…but you…you inspire me to do whatever the heck I want! I used to say 1 year was the absolute cutoff and now I say, “We’ll see” :)
what a wonderful story! i hope to BF until he’s ready to quit [he’s 2], but it is my wish that when he’s older, he can’t remember it! don’t want any trouble at school when he’s telling stories to friends. ;)
Lindsay - Your poor baby!! Stinging nettles are no fun =( I’d want comfort for that too!
To answer your question, the amount of nipple tenderness I feel seems to directly correlate to how often Charlotte nurses. My nipples are always a little more tender during pregnancy and I’m always a little more reluctant to breastfeed, but when she nurses several times a day for a few days in a row they feel much better than when she only nurses twice in a week.
Josette - My supply diminished pretty significantly, but I never went to the point of dry nursing. Around 18ish weeks, my colostrum came in and Charlotte’s interest in breastfeeding increased dramatically. She DEFINITELY likes the new flavor =) Once she began nursing more frequently, my supply evened out again.
Again, such a beautiful post. I love how you so eloquently describe the journey of your nursing relationship with your daughter. I so wanted my son to be able to nurse until he didn’t need to any longer. I had to wean him this past month and it was one of the saddest things I’ve ever had to do. 14 night of listening to my 2 1/2 year old sob with every awakening, this beloved child that I have never before allowed to cry when it was in my power to comfort. I am pregnant again, and having read Adventures in Tamden Nursing I fully planned to nurse through the pregnancy. Unfortunately I have morning sickness on overdrive. I’m currently down to 97 pounds and still losing weight. Not only did the nursing burn precious calories, but it heightened the nausea and became simply unbearable. I tried just night weaning, then decreasing the amount of nursing to what was “managable”, but eventually it became impossible to continue at all. I hope maybe my son won’t forget how to nurse and maybe we can pick up again later. He definitely wasn’t ready for this. I so wanted for him to be able to look back on peaceful, contented memories of his time nursing. Either he is just too young for that now, or if he can remember then he will remember this awful weaning. I’m honestly not sure which is worse.
I think it’s wonderful you’re still breast-feeding Charlotte. My daughter stopped nursing at 2.5 when I was four months pregnant with my third child. One day she just looked at me, said, “Mama, Boo is broken” and no more. :( :( I know my milk must have changed by that point (as that was the same time my son stopped breastfeeding - four months pregnant with my second child) and maybe it just wasn’t satisfying them (it was also excruciating for me!). I still ask my girl (who is only three and two months old) if she remembers nursing. She says she does. It’s only been eight or so months since she stopped but since she nursed the longest so far (my son was only 15 months old) I wonder what her memories of it are. :)
If your colostrum came in, would there still be enough for your new baby once it’s born? And are you worried your supply will decrease as your pregnancy progresses? I’ve heard its common in pregnancy which much be frustrating! I know very little about how all this works! Sorry for the dumb questions. :)
Kara - They aren’t dumb questions at all! I wondered the same things before going through this myself =)
To answer you, my supply decreased early in pregnancy, but once my colustrum came in, Charlotte enjoyed the flavor of the milk and began nursing more frequently. Even during pregnancy, more nursing stimulates greater milk production, so my supply recovered pretty quickly. I also do not worry about the amount of colustrum made available to the new baby. I began producing colustrum again several weeks ago (a thicker, sweeter colustrum than the saltier weaning colustrum I started producing nearly a year ago when Charlotte decreased her milk consumption pretty significantly). My body SHOULD keep making this colustrum until a couple days after the baby’s birth, when my milk should come in again. When Charlotte was born, I produced enough colustrum to feed two or three babies, so I suspect that I will do the same this time around as well. I expect that I will probably produce colustrum enough for the new baby and that Charlotte will enjoy the excess, and then my milk will come in and change flavors yet again =) How Charlotte likes that remains to be seen, but given how much fattier my milk was at the beginning of my nursing relationship with Charlotte than it was at the end, I suspect she’ll be willing to give it a shot!
Thanks Sarah! That makes a lot of sense. We are having our first in the next few weeks (I’m due Wednesday) and are talking about baby #2 already. If we are blessed with another kiddo soon after (like 6-12 mo) our first is born, I want to ensure I can keep my supply up as long as I can. :)
Congrats on your pregnancy and on your amazing Charlotte. She is a lot of fun to read about!

By on August 02, 2012
Dearest Sarah, you have the ability to write from your heart deep into mine, and many others I suspect. Thank you.