Otter and I in 2015 – she is three years old in this picture. Image: Erin Rudd Photography

I have been going back and forth on whether or not I wanted to share this part of our breastfeeding journey most of the summer.  It is hard to talk about breastfeeding beyond the first year in our US culture, let alone past the second birthday and beyond.

Otter and I have been nursing since her birth-day in October 2011. So that is now 5 years and 10 months…and we are still going.  She tells me that we are going to be nursing until she turns seven.  I am not so sure about that. She just lost her first baby tooth, and in my mind we were going to go until this point in her development.  Most mammals nurse their young until they lose their milk teeth, otherwise known as baby teeth in humans.

Did I ever imagine I would breastfeed a child this long?

Absolutely not! Never in my wildest imaginations did I ever think it was even possible. When I heard that people nursed into a child’s seventh year, I thought NOT ME. It’s crazy, it’s gross, it’s weird…yes, I thought all those things, too.

How did we get here?

Puma and I nursed until she was 22 months old.  She weaned on her own, it was an easy process.  We cut out one feeding at a time when she was around 18 months old. I happened to get pregnant around that time and she didn’t like the way the milk was tasting anyway.  After our miscarriage, she carried on as before, nursing 2-3 times a day. Then one night, she said she wanted to go to sleep without nursing, and that was it.  A couple of weeks later, she asked to nurse again; I said no because I assumed all the milk was gone.  Come to find out, it’s possible I may have made milk for her.  As they say, hindsight is always 20/20.

Night Owl nursed until he was around 18 months old. I stopped nursing him when I got pregnant with Charger. I tried to keep nursing through the pregnancy. My OB did not support that choice, and since we had already had a miscarriage, I didn’t want to take any chances with having more contractions. I was feeling them pretty much every time we nursed…so wean we did. It broke my heart – I knew he could use the boost of extra antibodies through the winter months, and I felt like I had to choose between breastfeeding and pregnancy.

Along came Charger…he was almost two years old and still nursing when I got pregnant with Otter.  I assumed he would naturally lose interest as Puma had when the flavor of the milk changed as my pregnancy progressed. I was wrong.  I could tell he wasn’t ready to wean – I tried all the things that had worked when I weaned Night Owl: replace the sessions with play time, or other food, or snuggle time.  He would take those options, and then insist on nursing after we had finished whatever we were doing to distract him.

I was definitely having contractions when we nursed again. Two years after our first experience of trying to nurse through a pregnancy, I had met people who had been able to and not miscarry. (Thank you, La Leche League!) This time around, armed with more knowledge, I made up a mantra that I would repeat as I started nursing to remind my body that the oxytocin I was making was for nursing, not for labor. Thankfully, it worked and the cramping during nursing sessions subsided.

He was still nursing when my milk changed to colostrum.  I could tell because all of a sudden he was having newborn-like diapers. YUCK when you are pregnant and you are changing toddler amounts of seedy, yellow, mushy poops.

He did tell me once that the milk tasted salty. I asked him if he was ready to stop then, and he just said, “No,” and kept on nursing.  Then came the mad scramble on my end – how was I going to feed two children at the same time? (set boundaries and expectations) Will there be enough milk for both children? (YES) Clearly the milk was adjusting to feed the newborn…would he still want the milk after the baby was born? (YES)

Thankfully, my wonderful La Leche League leaders helped me prepare and navigate tandem nursing. One of the leaders who had tandem nursed prepared me that the milk for the baby was going to be very creamy and full of fat again, and that most older nurslings LOVE to nurse again after the newborn milk comes in. This helped me set the boundaries and expectations that worked for us…after he ignored me for two days after his sister was born, he was right back to nursing without any hesitation.

We made some great memories as a tandem nursing family – as the sweet peas got older, they had quite the time telling each other when it was each other’s turn, and sometimes they made “reservations” to nurse on a particular “side”.  Hilarious. They usually took turns – I wasn’t crazy about having them nurse at the same time. We do have some Kodak moments captured of the few times they did happen to nurse together – for that I am grateful. Any way you look at it, I now understand the term “bosom friends” in a different light. Those two children remain close to this day.

Charger ended up nursing through his fifth birthday. At that time, I felt confident that I had honored his desire to nurse. He still wanted to keep going, however, he accepted that his fifth birthday was the time to end this part of our journey. I sure did miss the added immunity boost he got from breastfeeding. He was more sick that winter than he had ever been before.  The first time he got sick, I actually did nurse him and he recovered pretty quickly. It seems like there might have been an emotional component to healing without breastfeeding. Once we reminded him that he had a very strong immune system thanks to the years of breastfeeding, he seemed to stop getting sick so often. To this day he continues to make a quicker recovery when he is sick.

If you are doing the math, Otter was almost three years old when he weaned. She was kind of happy at first – both breasts all to herself…and then she was sad when she realized she and Charger were really not going to share in breastfeeding anymore.

Two things influenced my decision to allow Otter to self-wean. After seeing the remorse Charger had at being “forced” to wean at five, I did not want to make her have an end date. I also got to see a presentation by Dr. Nils Bergman in which he taught the biology of breastfeeding across mammals. He is the one who pointed out that the majority of mammals nurse their young until they loose their milk teeth, aka “baby teeth”.  LIGHTBULB. Okay, so now I really understood that nursing a human child until their the sixth or seventh birthday made sense from an evolutionary biological level.

Is nursing an older child like nursing a newborn or a toddler? 

Not in our case. Newborns nurse around the clock.  Around 6-8 months of age, most human children develop an interest in eating what is known as “solid food”. At that point, they breastfeed first, then try the solid food, and top off with breastfeeding to make sure they have gotten enough nutrients for that meal. We never stressed about what our children ate. We love that mantra that comes from the baby-led weaning crowd, “Food before one is just for fun.”

Around the first birthday, we would naturally lose a breastfeeding session as our children went from two naps a day to one. Then you drop some sessions around meal times as they become better eaters. As they start to move more and become toddlers, the interest decreases again. Our toddlers (18+ months) would nurse upon waking in the morning and before bedtime; anything in between was incidental: tired, overstimulated, injured, etc.

Somewhere between the second and third birthday, we told the sweet peas that they could only nurse at home. I was always willing to honor our children’s need/desire to breastfeed, however I was not willing to push social norms outside our home.

We kept to this morning/evening pattern until Charger and Otter were four years old.  At four, they had to choose: nurse upon waking or nurse at bedtime. At this point, any nursing during the day was as a last resort because all other comfort methods had failed.

I noticed that Otter’s pattern changed when she was 5.5 years old. She would go 2-3 days without nursing, and then ask again. I will always tell her, you can try and see what happens.  So far, she has always gotten milk.  How long will this last? I have no idea.

Why would anyone breastfeed this long?

For us, the benefits far outweigh being an outlier on the social norms scale.  The ones we have enjoyed are the bond between mother and child, the seemingly endless enjoyment of food and willingness to eat a large variety of flavors, and the immunity boost that lasts throughout the breastfeeding relationship (and beyond in Charger’s case).

I love this image from The Alpha Parent that outlines the many benefits of breastfeeding into the toddler years:

What does my husband think?

He supports this choice. There is no way we would have breastfed Charger as long as he was, or continue breastfeeding Otter this long, without his support. It meant he had to be mature enough not to feel jealous of the children, which he always has been, thank God. In addition, he very readily accepted that my breasts were not “his” or the children’s.  They were MY breasts, and they could be used to feed our children, and still be sexy when we had our time together.

Is the choice right for every family? My guess is probably not, even though it would be lovely if more children were fed until at least the second birthday if circumstances allowed. If it is something you are mulling around and you would like more information,  I would be happy to help if I can.  Please leave me a comment and I will do my best to answer any questions you might have.

Other blog posts I have written about our extended breastfeeding journey:

Our Journey Into Tandem Nursing May 2012 intro about our chosen path

Still Tandem Nursing August 2012 update

Tandem Nursing – Extended  July 2013 update

My Take on Toddler Nursing – Today August 2013 photojournal of “gymnurstics”…thank goodness that was only a phase!

Breastfeeding a Toddler  August 2015 Otter was four years old and my only nursling at this point

Nursing By Example: The power of peer-to-peer support

Nursing a Toddler: Benefits, and why it’s good to follow your instincts and your children’s cues

Extended Breastfeeding: the science behind why it’s beneficial

Breastfeeding & Tandem Nursing: Encouraging parents to follow the right path for their family

THEME: First day of Fall
Play date: September 22, 2016

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme
— Storytime
— Unsquiggle activity
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers

STORY TIME
This is a treasure from a Scholastic book box I purchased early in our homeschool days.  I like this book because each page has a bold call out that can be read as an easy reader, and in regular font there is more detail for the child that is ready to read/learn more about the topic.

LITERACY CENTER
Letters:  F-A-L-L and A-U-T-U-M-N

Lots of opportunity for play and learning today:
Level 1: Talk about uppercase and lowercase letters. Have the child find the letter cards that match the words.

Level 2: Scramble the letters for one word and have the child line them up with the corresponding card.

Level 3: Scramble the letters for 2-3 of the words and have the child line them up with the corresponding cards.

MATH CENTER
Magnet Leaves – Fishing for pairs 1-6

I was inspired to create this center by the magnet lessons I have been doing with Otter and Charger. They love “fishing” with their magnet fishing poles.  So I took some of our fabric leaves that could withstand the wear and tear of continual use and paired them with a number. I try to incorporate print as much as I can when we do centers, so aside from the number I also wrote the name of the number on the circle. One set is in English, the other is in Spanish.

With more time and/or if you have the storage space, you could make more pieces and some game boards that have a leaf outline on them and numbered leaves. Instead of lining them up in a row, they could be matched to the corresponding spot on a game board.

The other activity we did was half discovery, half math.  We hid ten “acorns” in the leaves.  Then we gave the children rakes to dig through and find as many acorns as they could find. They got to count the acorns and then hide them again for the next sweet pea.

DISCOVERY TABLE
Leaf rubbing

We used the age-old and oft enjoyed crayon rubbing art idea to explore leaves. First you get the sensory experience of rubbing: it has a feel and a sound to it.  Then there is the magical aspect of creating art that “magically” appears.

What I noticed yesterday and pointed out to the older children was the difference between our desert plant leaves and those that are pictured in most books about leaves.  Our water-deprived desert leaves and small and/or long and thin, and many are spiky. Looking at the picture books that feature trees of the more temperate forest climates, we can see that those leaves are bigger and come in many more varieties. They could make the connection that the more water is available, the larger the leaf size.

Another reason I like this as a discovery table for toddlers is that once the papers are finished, we can look and talk about similarities and differences using their art instead of the more fragile leaves.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
Leaf necklace idea is from Kiwi Crate

One of the things I love about doing crafts with young children is that it provides an opportunity for organic learning. “How many leaves do you want in your necklace?” ” Can you count out “x” number of leaves?” “What color bead is going to be first?” “Which color would you like next?”

All this on top of the fact that you are working to improve their motor skills and hand-eye coordination, as well as inviting them to use their imagination. The different textures of the materials also help stimulate their senses…no wonder this is one of my favorite stations to pull together each week.

We finish our Preschool Playdate with a sharing time: each child that wants to share gets to say what (s)he enjoyed the most about the morning.  We close with a good-bye song where children are welcome to give hugs.  It helps to set a formal end to the time together so that parents have a clear reason to insist that it’s time to go if they have somewhere to be afterwards

Play date: February 25th
In honor of Carnival Day

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme: What is a carnival? Children+Parents named some of the different places they had been to a carnival.
— Storytime: Manner Monster
— Centers
— Poem/Song before we say goodbye

STORY TIME
I searched high and low on our bookshelves for a story with a carnival theme, or even a mention of going to a carnival.  For once, they came up short!! I could have used one of our word dictionary books…however, this provided a great opportunity to share a book I bought with playdates in mind, The Do’s and Don’ts by Hayley Rose.  I marked the pages that would work as basic guidelines for a safe carnival experience and shared those, rather than reading through the whole book.

Before breaking for centers, we also shared an tumbling show with our guests. All our homeschoolers take tumbling classes, so they threw together a quick little routine to perform for our guests.  The Sweet Peas were kind enough to show their appreciation by yelling, “More!” when we turned off the music – my big kids were tickled pink!

LITERACY CENTER
What’s a carnival without a fishing game?? I chose six letters that the children had seen over the last few months.  The game/pieces are from Discovery Toys, and the letter magnets are from Lakeshore Learning. The sweet peas could fish for lowercase letters and then match them to the correct uppercase letter.

MATH CENTER
This was inspired by the ring toss games on the carnival midway.  I modified a cookie game from Lakeshore Learning (it was a big hit when we did our Cookie Playdate). So I decided to give it a reprise as today’s counting game, and also incorporate colors and shapes…hence the Cookie Toss!
Level 1: Practice gross motor skills and simply toss cookies on the plate.
Level 2: Roll the dice and count out the cookies to throw
Level 3: Roll, count, and then name the color and shape on the plate where the cookie landed

DISCOVERY TABLE
We had three “discovery” centers today:
TUMBLING
Puma and Otter helped the kiddos with some basic tumbling – Otter demonstrated and Puma coached.  They taught our guests spider walks, stoop jumps, somersaults, and straddle rolls.

BEAN BAG TOSS
This was another gross motor skill activity. We stacked up some of our upcycled tins and created a stacking tower with them.  The kiddos took turns throwing a bean bag at the tower to see how many they could knock over with one throw.  The can-counting also gave us the opportunity to work in some math 🙂

FEED THE DOG
I pulled out this game with all the “in the basket” games that are prominent on carnival midways.  This was a no-pressure fun way to get the bones in the dog’s mouth – no tossing involved!  The sweet peas could use the tweezers to work on fine motor skills, or simply pick up the bones with their fingers and put them in front of the stuffed pup or inside the dog’s mouth.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
There was no planned craft today – I had a couple of ideas that I just didn’t get around to executing.  I always have art paper and art supplies around the house.  The group very organically started grabbing sheets of paper and drawing supplies and before I knew it, there was a gaggle of children on the floor having the best time drawing!!

It was a good reminder for me: simple can be enough!!

We finish our Preschool Playdate with a sharing time: each child that wants to share gets to say what (s)he enjoyed the most about the morning.  There were several favorites today: tumbling, bean bag toss, feed the dog, and fishing were all named more than once.

We close with a good-bye song where children are welcome to give hugs.  It helps to set a formal end to the time together so that parents have a clear reason to insist that it’s time to go if they have somewhere to be afterwards.

We are taking a two-week break from hosting playdates while we enjoy our Spring Break!  Join me the next couple of Thursdays for a peek inside our vacations at Disneyland + Legoland.  I will take the time to blog about how amazing both theme parks are for our gluten-free family.

Play date: February 18, 2016
Inspiration: Black History Month

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme: we talked about how even today, people are talking about excluding people due to the color of their skin or their religion:
— Storytime: Our Children Can Soar by Michelle Cook

STORY TIME
This is my second year sharing this book – still can’t read it without having my voice crack. I can’t help but think of what it must have been like for these tremendous people who had the courage to face discrimination, hatred, and even violence to assert their basic humanity, and the right to equitable treatment under the law and from their fellow human.

LITERACY CENTER
This year I chose for all the cards to tie to the characters in the book.  We split the cards and the letters between two tables so the kiddos could do two letter stations and explore a little more about the historical figures mentioned in the book.  I also highlighted the first letter of the name that they were looking to match to make it a little easier to locate the letter.

MATH CENTER
This was a neat find – the inventor of the golf tee is from one of the towns I lived in as a child – Oswego, New York!! This idea is from Preschool Plan-it: using golf tees in styrofoam, and then having the kiddos balance pom-poms on the top.  The Sweet Peas got to practice counting as well as fine motor skills if they used the tweezers.

DISCOVERY TABLE
This little chemistry experiment was an homage to the great African-American chemist, George Washington Carver.  We didn’t use peanuts or sweet potatoes, but we did use a vegetable: red cabbage.  Red cabbage can be used to test for acids.  After soaking in boiling water, it turns to water purple.  If any acid is mixed into the solution, it will turn varying shades of pink.

The Sweet Peas had fun guessing which items would turn the water pink, testing their hypothesis, and then finding out what in fact, is and isn’t acid.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
This is another inspiration from Preschool Plan-it: mixing shaving cream and glue so that the art work is permanent.  It actually has a really cool spongy texture.  Mixing the glue, shaving cream, and food coloring was a fun activity in and of itself!

We finish our Preschool Playdate with a sharing time: each child that wants to share gets to say what (s)he enjoyed the most about the morning.  This morning, there were three popular centers: the math, the art, and the discovery centers were all mentioned with equal enthusiasm.

We close with a good-bye song where children are welcome to give hugs.  It helps to set a formal end to the time together so that parents have a clear reason to insist that it’s time to go if they have somewhere to be afterwards.

Join us next week for a peek into our carnival-inspired playdate!!

May 21, 2015
Theme chosen in honor of National Waiter/Waitress Day

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme: we talked about eating at a restaurant, asked if any of the mommies had ever waited tables, and the kinds of things we see in a restaurant: tables, chairs, food, cash register, menus, etc.
— Storytime
— Unsquiggle activity
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers

STORY TIME
We took the opportunity to introduce the concept of money this playdate…because waiters and waitresses need to make change!

As the book introduced different values of coins, we passed around the oversize coins that we use in our own homeschool math center.

LITERACY CENTER
We introduced the concept of vowels in May – so here is another activity that takes advantage of matching letters to sounds.  I selected five foods that started with each of the vowel letters: apple, egg, ice cream, oatmeal or “O’s”, and unagi (a type of sushi).

Level 1: Name+Match the letter magnets

Level 2: Match the letter magnet to the beginning sound of the food item.

MATH CENTER
This was a shape-match center today! We put out the matching egg activity that was gifted to Puma for her first Christmas (the set is almost 11 years old now!).  We also pulled out a pancake-plate matching activity. The brown circles represent pancakes – the Sweet Peas would use the spatula to put them on the plate with the corresponding shape.

Level 1: Match shapes

Level 2: Match & name the shapes

Level 3: Sort the pancake shapes, and then count them as they are placed on the plates.

DISCOVERY TABLE
We put out the oversize shaped coins, along with actual coins. The sweet peas could interact with both the teaching and the actual money.

Level 1: Sort them into matching piles + introduce the concept of value

Level 2: Count how many coins are in each pile

Level 3: Add up the value of the money

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
Each Sweet Pea got to make their own apron to use during imaginative play time.  We used hole reinforcers to make the hole-punched paper stronger, and used a thin craft yarn for the ties.

After the kiddos finished their aprons and we cleaned up the stations, the Sweet Peas played restaurant. We pulled out the play cash registers, food, and kitchen so that they could take orders, prepare, and serve foods to the mommies.  I made visual order forms so that the children could see the written words for the food that the mommies were ordering.

We finish our Preschool Playdate with a sharing time: each child that wants to share gets to say what (s)he enjoyed the most about the morning.  We close with a good-bye song where children are welcome to give hugs.  It helps to set a formal end to the time together so that parents have a clear reason to insist that it’s time to go if they have somewhere to be afterwards.  Otherwise, the kiddos and parents that don’t have to leave stay and play until the music teacher for our older Sweet Peas arrives.