I remember when I was still nursing my oldest daughter while I was very pregnant with my son, someone asked me what I was going to do after the baby was born and they both wanted to nurse. This simply was a non-issue for me. I would nurse both. I have now talked to many mothers who do the same thing (although it is not, in my opinion a very common practice). Here is a list of reasons why you might consider nursing through a pregnancy and then tandem nursing both the toddler and the baby.
1. Child led weaning.
Many mothers choose to continue nursing through their pregnancies because they believe in child led weaning. Child led weaning, as the phrase implies, means that the child would “choose” to wean himself. It doesn’t necessarily mean that a mother wouldn’t do some things to help encourage the weaning process, but generally speaking, it would be the child that determines when he’s ready to stop.
2. Preventing Jealousy.
Several mothers surveyed indicated that tandem nursing prevented jealousy in the older sibling. While I would be hard pressed to say that it completely prevented jealousy, I will say that we observed the same phenomenon in our household with all of are nursing toddlers. It seemed to be much easier on a toddler who was allowed to nurse along side the new baby.
3. Tandem nursing fosters close relationships between siblings.
I think this is nearly impossible to say that a close relationship is due to the tandem breastfeeding. However, it certainly makes sense that the bonding would increase if the sibling pair spends significant amounts of time nursing together.
4. Tandem nursing relieves engorgement.
Instead of using a pump to relieve engorgement or expressing milk by hand, a nursing toddler will take care of engorgement rather quickly. Tandem nursing also will help prevent plugged ducts by the same principle.
5. Increasing the duration of lactational amenorrhea.
That’s the really fancy way of saying that while you’re nursing, you shouldn’t get your period back. Nursing two at a time may increase the duration of time that you don’t get your period. (Note: Simultaneous nursing is what really lengthens the duration of time that you experience amenorrhea.)
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