Tandem feeding anyone??

Hi! I have two boys 20 months apart. I stopped breastfeeding my son when he was 19 months old and I was 8 months pregnant. I was planning to do tandem breastfeeding but my son just lost interest. I have no idea why. Maybe I had a low milk supply? I thought that he might be interested in starting up again once his brother was born but that did not happen. Sometimes I joke with him when I am breastfeeding his brother and he shows absolutely zero interest in the breast! In fact, he wants nothing to do with it! So you may be surprised at how things turn out... <em>edited by AnonDubai on 15/08/2014</em>

I think a lot of people simply can't be bothered dealing with weird attitudes to their breastfeeding toddlers, so do tend to be less obvious about it but certainly I know plenty of people who have breastfed past one year and obviously the WHO do actually recommend 2 years, as does the Koran ;). Anyway I stopped breastfeeding my son when I was just past halfway through my second pregnancy, he was 22 months at the time. I think if you are going to stop it is probably easier to do it at around that point in the pregnancy rather than right when the new baby is born, to avoid resentment. Obviously my son was older, and certainly it helped that he was already sleeping through the night, and took a dummy, and loved his solids. Essentially my supply dropped to the point where he wasn't really getting much for his trouble and it was easy to just offer him a glass of cow's milk instead. I went the "don't offer, don't refuse, do distract" route where I would say yes to nursing but then try and engage him in something else or present him with something yummy and hope he would forget. The whole process was very smooth and no tears were shed (by him at least). By the time his sister was born he honestly couldn't really remember breastfeeding. He did ask once if he could when I was feeding her and I said yes, and he sort of pursed his lips and looked confused, he had completely forgotten what to do! He seemed quite relieved when I asked he he'd rather have a milkshake ;) So no jealously in our case. I know a couple of people who have tandem nursed and for the most part it worked out fine and was quite a nice way to bond as a family. I am now trying to wean my daughter (now 23 months) and it is tougher going, so all kids are different and have different levels of emotional dependency on breastfeeding. There is a facebook page, the "Natural family living network UAE", if you join you will find plenty of tandem feeders you can ask your questions to, and nursing past one year is more considered the norm than an anomaly lol.