Finally the poll feature is functioning again here at Breastfeeding 1-2-3! This time let’s talk about your thoughts on tandem nursing!
Must-have guide if you're tandem nursing or considering it
Have you ever nursed more than one nursling at a time? Answer the poll and leave a comment to share your experience or your opinion! If you tandem nursed, how did you feel about it? Did you nurse your children at the same time (one at each breast) or nurse one and then the other? I will share that just after I had my second baby, I nursed my toddler and newborn at the same time so there was little or no jealousy on the part of my toddler. Soon though I gently encouraged her to wait until her little sister was done nursing as that was more comfortable for me. I think if I had had twins I would have worked hard to handle nursing them both at the same time if at all possible, but with an older child it felt far more comfortable for me to nurse them separately and we happily continued that tandem nursing relationship for many months! You can read more of
my tandem nursing story here. But back to the poll — I want to hear from you!
Please leave a comment as well!
At first I nursed my newborn and older child together, but I had to transition the older one to having ‘numnums’ on her own after a bit. When my daughter would latch at the same time as her younger brother, I suddenly wanted her as far from me as possible. I’ve never felt like that before or since. Something to do with the hormones?? Fortunately she is fine with waiting to nurse, so we have a simple solution that allowed me to continue tandem nursing.
I’ll soon be nursing three! Would never have imagined it, but here I am. My kids are all happy and thriving, so this works well for us.
Never in a million years did I plan to tandem nurse. My goal was to nurse for six months with my first child. Six months turned into a year and then I couldn’t imagine still nursing at 18 months, low and behold I was nursing at 18 months four months pregnant. We just kept going and I couldn’t imagine weaning her. When her sister arrived it was so nice to still have that bond with my older daughter. She is now 30 months and still asks to nurse, just less and less frequently. There were moments early on that I nursed both at the same time to deal with the older having a hard time waiting her turn. Now, I make her wait her turn and she doesn’t seem to mind.
I answered that I was “glad” to do so, but really I found it extraordinarily hard. In our case, the breast became a jealous battle ground with the older one pushing the younger away regularly (for months).
Nursing them together was far too overwhelming (with the big one pushing the little one off etc.) and we needed to set some very strict limits on our older child to make it liveable (and safe) for everyone.
I’d still do it again. He’s 3.5 and seems to have just about weaned now, he was two and a half when the new baby arrived. CLW wasn’t what I aimed for when I first started nursing him, but I believe it’s been for the best. The new baby was/is mindblowingly high-needs and CLW/tandem nursing has reassured him that his Mum is still around and still there for him. It was five minutes of time when he could be sure I was concentrating solely on him. It forced me to spend that time.
What I learned from all of that, however, was pretty simple. In our circumstances I needed to set limits for my own sanity. And that was more than OK.
My children are almost three years apart and I tandem nursed them for a year and a half, with my older one weaning at 4 1/2 years. I don’t regret doing it at all, but after doing it I decided that if I had any more children (I didn’t, mine are grown now) that I would not decide to do it again lightly. I went into it thinking it would be “no big deal” and I did find many benefits, however there were downsides too.
On the plus side – I was glad to continue my nursing relationship with my older child for awhile longer. I think there was less jealousy that there might have been if he had felt that the baby had usurped his place. Having a older nursling helped tremendously with engorgement. Also, my little one was jaudiced and at first her blood sugar was low, the fact that I already had an established milk suply kept the hospital from pushing bottles for either of those issues. (She never had one.)
On the other side – I found it difficult emotionally to nurse them at the same time, when I did I felt very “torn” so beyond the very early days each had his turn. (Which had it’s own up and down sides.) Over time I began to feel that nursing both was exhausting and as my son grew older I was more than ready to wean him; it was difficult though with my daughter still nursing. I couldn’t use the “no more milk” excuse and I didn’t want him to feel excluded. He did finally wean at about 4 1/2, but it was a challenge.
All in all, if I had had a third child, if they had been less than two years a part in age, I would have almost surely tandem nursed again. I would not have wanted to wean the older one at too young of an age. However, I would have thought long and hard about tandem nursing siblings that far apart in age again. (Interestingly, even with very different circumstances, my second child also ended up weaning at about the same age as my first, 4 1/2 years.)