Life After Birth Control: Eden's weaning story: Nursing while pregnant

A collage of nursing Eden--from birth to weaning

I got pregnant when Eden was around 14 months old. My fertility returned somewhat hesitantly (with few, irregular periods and spotty ovulation) at that point, and I'm convinced that it did so mainly because I was working 40+ hours outside the home at that point. Had she and I still been together nonstop during the day, I'm pretty sure it would have stayed away longer. Consider me impressed with the lactational amenorrhea method! However, we were ready and excited for another baby by that point, and so we were fertility charting and hoping for the pregnancy which did come shortly thereafter.

At that point, Eden was a hearty eater of table food, but also still an enthusiastic nurser and still getting a pretty decent amount of breastmilk when we were together. I felt like I'd entered the golden age of nursing: I didn't have to pump when we were away from each other, but I had plenty of milk when she wanted it. Nursing was perhaps equal parts nutrition and comfort, and especially when she occasionally got sick (which we noticed happening more frequently as she was relying less on breastmilk), I was grateful to have an easily tolerated, readily acceptable, always-available source of nutrition, immunities, and electrolytes for her.

Eden's first bout with the stomach flu--during which she couldn't keep down anything but breastmilk

I'd read many accounts of nursing while pregnant, and it seemed like most women described a) a feeling of restlessness/fidgetiness/general discomfort at some point while nursing; and b) that their milk supply dried up, if not totally, at least considerably, around 20 weeks of pregnancy. I also read many accounts of women who were just beginning their NWP journey who expressed hope that neither of these things would happen to them, since there were occasionally stories of women who nursed without discomfort or decline in milk supply up until their new baby was born. (There were, however, far more stories of those who developed tactics for nursing through the discomfort/decreased milk supply.) I was one of the hopeful ones. And for the first trimester and a half, nursing continued as usual, and Eden was very attached to it, since at that point I was doing full-time midwifery clinicals and gone for long, unpredictable stretches at any hour of the day or night. Nursing was a quick and foolproof way for us to reconnect when I was home, for however long that might be.

Around the time I finished school and we moved back to the midwest, though, I was starting to experience exactly the restless feelings described by so many other pregnant and nursing moms. The best way I can describe it is that to say before Eden was born, I had worried that nursing would feel squeamish or strange or too sensitive. Up until my second pregnancy, I never had a moment of feeling like this. Some soreness and tenderness at the very beginning, but it always felt very comfortable and natural--much to my pleasant surprise. Around the 20 week mark, though--at which time my milk did also dry up--it did start to feel...not exactly painful, although a little bit, but more sort of strange and uncomfortable, like I was too aware of every little sensation. We had basically cut down to just a quick nursing before naps and bedtime, and before long, I had cut that down to literally less than a minute at a time.

At that point, I stepped back and thought about where we were at on our nursing journey, and since the milk was essentially gone and she was nursing for connection and comfort (and it was causing me such extreme discomfort, making it difficult for me to feel much connection through it), it made sense to me for us to take the time before the new baby came to find other ways for comfort and connection. I realize I am in an incredibly fortunate position to be able to afford a nutritious and complete diet for my child (not true of toddlers in much of the world) and to have a toddler who eats heartily and enthusiastically, anything from beef stew to sauerkraut to carrots and apples and cottage cheese (not true of toddlers in much of the United States). I didn't like the idea of just "suffering through it," (though my hat goes off to those who do--it just didn't feel like the right solution for us), or limiting her so sharply in what she relied on for security. I'd also read of people who endured the pregnancy nursing in hopes of tandem nursing, only to find that it was just too uncomfortable/demanding for them to nurse two children at once. I too had originally hoped and planned to tandem nurse Eden and this next baby, since I'd always assumed I'd nurse her until age two or beyond and she would only be 22 months when the new baby was born. However, considering that I might find myself in a situation of feeling like I needed to abruptly wean her at a sensitive time when she needed me most made me rethink that plan. Instead, I decided to focus on filling her needs in other ways while she was still an only child, so that by the time her little brother or sister came along, we were well established in a pattern of connection without nursing.

I was also open to her leading throughout the process. Had she shown much resistance to it, I would have reconsidered; and it was always my position that if she wanted to resume nursing when the baby was born and my milk came back, I was open to it.

Weaning was rather uneventful and gradual; since we were down to just one or two times a day, before bed, I started rocking and singing to her instead. The first couple of days she reached for my shirt like she wanted to nurse, but she gave in easily and rested her head on my chest instead when I declined. I don't think she ever cried for it or really acted upset; she seemed to take the change in stride. As a result, I don't really remember when her last nursing was, and I think I like it that way. I do know that it was sometime in January, so she was about 19 months old or so. Rather earlier than I had anticipated, but it seemed to feel right and natural for us.

A few times in the weeks and months following when she stopped nursing, she asked to nurse again, and I would let her try. In those times, she seemed to have literally forgotten how. She would try, look up at me, pat my chest, then rest her head on it and say "hi," which was kind of her universal "I love you." It was really very endearing, and made me feel like she knew it was there if she needed it, but that she really didn't need it anymore.

Incidentally, shortly before the weaning we had started putting her to sleep in her own bed in a different room. It was nothing we had intended; when we lived in temporary housing, she slept on a folding bed next to ours simply because our double bed wasn't big enough for a grown man, a pregnant woman, and an active toddler. However, we'd intended to keep her in our room indefinitely, and possibly even co-sleep with both her and the new baby. Once again, life had other plans, and once we moved to the midwest, she was sleeping poorly in our room and waking up frequently throughout the night. As a last resort, we tried putting her to sleep in the next room--and with few exceptions, she's slept peacefully through the night ever since. Another example of how parenthood doesn't always conform to your expectations!

Thinking about it now, I think the timing for both of those things was right for us and right for her. One of the best pieces of parenting advice I've heard (I think it was from Dr Sears) is that if you feel resentful about something in parenting, change it. I wasn't feeling exactly resentful of nursing, but it wasn't mutually rewarding anymore, either; and in terms of switching her to her own room, we were starting to feel pretty impatient with the interruption in sleep. The other thing is that Eden has always been a fairly strong-willed child, but she acquiesced to weaning and sleeping in her own bed literally without a whimper around the age of 18-20 months. Nowadays, I think either of those changes would be much harder than they were back then. She's a strongly opinionated almost-two-year-old who has definite ideas about everything from where everyone should sit at meals to what cup she wants to drink out of to who she wants to take her to the potty or get her dressed after bathtime.

While I 1000% support mothers whose nursing relationship lasts considerably longer than mine and Eden's did, I do notice that among those nursing older toddlers, there are some (many?) mothers who begin to feel impatient for weaning but finds herself with a clash of wills on her hands when it comes to going about it. In our case, for our particular situation, while I do have the occasional bittersweet moments when I realize that that chapter of our relationship is closed, I also feel like even bigger doors have opened for us (not as a result of weaning, but just of her growing up in general) and that it was a move in the right direction. I feel grateful that we caught the window where it seems like the timing was easiest on her and on us, and I also feel good about how we balanced the needs of everyone in the family--a juggling act that will become more necessary as we add more kids to the clan. I can only hope that future parenting milestones can go as smoothly--and that we can remember to be flexible with our own family, and understanding of those families whose journeys look different than ours.