In which it is suggested that I have a more recent entry without screened comments

[beetiger]

Life continues, and it nearly always does, in one form or another. My websites are not nearly busy enough. (If anyone still wants to do some holiday shopping, I'll do my darndest to get things to you on time.)

Last night, I dragged myself and Rhys to a La Leche League meeting instead of the weekly Ars Magica game, because they'd bugged me about a book I had out from their library and because I could still use some support on this whole toddler nursing thing. Left leaving angry and discouraged, as most of the women I'd found helpful in the past were not there, and the particular leader running this time was the aggressive and unsympathetic one. She told me (and the group) that even though several of La Leche's books mention this as a good idea, limiting night nursing for toddlers is "very much not recommended" and that I was likely "not meeting Rhys' basic needs and this could have very bad repercussions down the line". Right. Because nursing on demand is way more important than learning to abide by reasonable limits is for a two-year old. Also, two year olds *never* ask for anything that doesn't meet a basic need. Of course.

I know a few of you here are nursing/have nursed toddlers -- support please?

This morning I got big fuzzy down slippers, and some lovely purple and red flowers in a very very red vase just showed up. I'm hoping the big box with my big present arrives today, but probably not.

It's mariethebee's birthday today too, so people from the Sampler are spouting birthday wished for Bee all over the place and I can pretend they are for me. Also, an offline friend of mine (Hi, Yvon!) also has a birthday today, and he had a dream about giving me birthday spankings, So whee!

Comments

[aelf.livejournal.com]

Hi, I don't know how I ran across your journal, but I'm nursing a two year old. I'm just going to do a bit of an information dump, hopefully you won't mind.

My daughter will be 2.5 at Christmas. Currently, she nurses in the morning, to sleep (night time and nap time), and irregularly throughout the day when I'm not at work. Somedays she won't nurse at all through the day.

My husband and I night weaned her about 2 months ago. She had been nursing every 1.5 - 2.5 hours throughout the night since she was born. I was exhausted. I'm sure you know the feeling. :) I was not happy with things, and I really needed some sleep. So this is what we started doing. When she woke up in the night and came into our room (she starts the night in her own room, and comes into ours a few hours later, has done this ever since we tried getting her to use her own room, I'll worry about adjusting that habit later :) ), we'd tuck her in next to my husband and I would go to her room to sleep. If I tried to sleep in the same bed with her, she'd insist on nursing and there would be crying. But if I simply disappeared, she'd usually ask, and talk about nursing a little bit with daddy, but go back to sleep without lots of tears. We told her that mommy's nurses needed to sleep at night, and she'd get them in the morning.

If we tried to make her go back to sleep in her own bed, without someone to sleep with, and without nursing, well, it'd be a cryfest, and we try to avoid having her cry. She now comes into our bed in the middle of the night, and while she occasionally asks to nurse (maybe 25% of the time) I remind her that nurses are asleep, and when she wakes up in the morning they'll be ready for her; that works very well. Rarely does she start to grab and paw and insist, and when she does I simply go into her room to sleep for the rest of the night and she willingly sleeps with her daddy.

Feel free to ask if you have any questions. I really don't think my daughter's been harmed. She *does* ask to nurse a little bit more often during the day than she did before we night weaned her, but I think that's mostly to prove to herself that they're still there, she can still nurse, they're not being taken completely away.

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

Sounds like your pattern is a lot like ours -- he toddles out of his room and comes to sleep in our bed from about 2 am until morning, and we don't nurse between bedtime and first light unless something unusual is going on.

I'm not unhappy about this at all. This only came up because a pregnant woman asked some of us "oldtimers" what it was like nursing a toddler. Getting chewed out in front of a bunch of people, *and my son* who was there, for it was the part I was unhappy about.

I just need support because I'm tired, and my body doesn't really like the nursing right now -- I tend to find it kind of physically annoying.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

She chewed you out for your parenting in front of your child and a bunch of other women who were asking for guidance?

I'd call her up and give her a piece of my mind in private, were I you.

I have a friend who used to call her LLL leader a "boob nazi" for her total disrespect for anyone who didn't nurse until the age of six. Not all are like that - but it's not unreasonable to call up the other leader, tell her what happened, and that as a result, you're not coming back anytime soon. I'd also mention that if they really want women to continue nursing, sending them on massive guilt-trips is counter-productive.

[aelf.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was completely inappropriate, is there someone you can tell? Write a letter? Nursing is hard. Extending nursing is harder. There is no right way, except for "what works."

I'm not really thrilled with nursing either. I still let the kiddo nurse since she obviously wants to, but if she weaned, I think I'd do a little dance of happiness. It feels so horrible to say that, since we're supposed to love this bonding experience blah blah blah. I'm tired, too.