Toddler’s Reduced Interest in Breastfeeding (Mom to Mom #15)
Kelley wrote to me with the following question:
My 10 month old babe has started to come over (she’s been walking for about two months now). She starts to nurse, and then as soon as my milk drops she fusses to get up and walks away, happy as a clam I might add. Is this normal? Is she playing some nursing game that I don’t know about? I can’t find anything about it online. She only wants to really nurse at night, or if I catch her in a groggy state after a nap. Otherwise, it’s the routine above. Any info or suggestions? I don’t want to shoo her away if she really wants it. Is it a phase? Any thoughts you or others might have would be greatly appreciated!
My reply:
My thoughts are that it’s perfectly normal — that your daughter is excited about everything else going on in her day and is too busy to nurse. Her coming to you until the milk lets down is just her making sure it’s there if she needs it! She’s checking in and reconnecting with you briefly before she goes off to explore something else. It’s giving her the self-confidence and assurance to explore her world.
You’re doing the right thing by nursing at night and trying to catch her at other times that she is receptive, like when she just wakes up from a nap. If you want to encourage more nursing during the day, you could try the bathtub as a relaxing setting (skin-to-skin contact can help too), using a sling (if she enjoys that), or going into a darkened room.
One helpful resource is the book Mothering Your Nursing Toddler
by Norma Jane Bumgarner.
What has your experience with toddler nursing been? Did your nursling’s level of interest in breastfeeding wax and wane over time? Did a period of reduced interest in breastfeeding lead to weaning? How did you handle any changes in nursing interest? Leave a comment!
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POSTED IN: Mom-to-Mom, breastfeeding, toddler nursing, weaning
3 opinions for Toddler’s Reduced Interest in Breastfeeding (Mom to Mom #15)
LoopyNZ
Jul 10, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Before being a mother of a nursing toddler myself, I had imagined that the path of breastfeeding would be a steady drop-off in the number of feeds the child requested until they had weaned completely.
Now I know that it can go up and down quite dramatically depending on what’s going on in the child’s life. When he’s sick, he wants almost nothing BUT “mummy milk”, but he’ll quite happily spend a night or two with Granny without a tear. (Although he occasionally asks Granny for “mummy milk” first thing in the morning, which she has to regretfully decline!)
I’ve often read from mothers who say sadly “my son gave up the breast/weaned himself at 9 months”, and wonder if they were aware of nursing strikes and that a drop in interest in or length of feeds doesn’t necessarily mean that the breastfeeding relationship is over.
For me personally the harder thing to handle is when his interest in nursing increases again… I have to stop myself from automatically saying “No” - being a mummy, I’m always busy, of course! - and check whether I actually DO have the time to sit down, relax, and enjoy him.
Maria
Jul 12, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Nursing The Boy as a toddler is sometimes up and down– for both of us– but overall enjoyable. There are times when he is just too busy to slow down and nurse, and there are times when all he wants is to nurse. When he hit 15 months or so, I stopped offering (not to wean, but I thought I might be holding him back from exploring), and he still comes and asks to nurse when he needs it, and all the “mommy-led” nursing ended. It’s been great for both of us. I don’t expect he’ll give up the remaining sessions any time soon!
Independence and the Breastfed Child
Jul 21, 2008 at 4:49 am
[…] evidence of this, see this question from a breastfeeding mother who wrote about her daughter’s growing independence, and this story about the time my then four-year-old made it quite clear my presence was no longer […]
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