When your Needs and your Kids Needs Don’t Mesh

Glad I'm not the only one Tandem Nursing!

 

I’m a mom, who I would say for the most part puts my kids first, (I also fully understand that there needs to be balance in my life as well), but my kids are little and they need me and that is just fine with me. I don’t go out much without them, and my house isn’t as clean as I would like it to be and I don’t have the money or the time to do all the Pinterest activities that I would like, because my kids need me, and right now I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But E and I finally hit a crossroads, he still wanted to Nurse and I was done. Let me give you some background, E is about to turn 3 next week, and W is 8 months, so I nursed E for over 2 years and have been Tandem nursing E & W for 8 months. First let me say that if you asked me five years ago if I would nurse my child till he was 3 or if I would tandem nurse I would tell you “no way” but my parenting has evolved over the years and the more I have learned about the benefits of extending breastfeeding and ultimately about the benefits of listening to your child and their needs, it has landed me where I am today. Nursing E has been a great relationship, and while Tandem nursing has been tiring and really demanding, I think that it has been the best thing for E. I am grateful for the time that we had, but for me the time was coming to a close but E was showing NO SIGNS of letting up, he was happy to do “Nursies” whenever I let him (which by this point was morning, nap and night time) and while I was confident, I wouldn’t be nursing him till College I knew he was content to let it go a lot longer than I was. But like I said, my kids come first and I really struggled with stopping because I knew for him it would be hard and was he ready for that type of hard in his life. Neal & I discussed it over and over again for months on end, trying to decide when to stop and how to stop. E and I had had a great nursing relationship and if by chance he remembers it I wanted it to be a great memory, not a negative one.  There was so much thought into the decision. I was starting to become resentful when E asked to nurse, I wanted my body back, but for him it was a place of comfort and as a mother I wanted to comfort him, it was so difficult to resolve those two conflicting emotions. But after months and months of discussion I finally hit a place, where not nursing E sounded way more appealing than nursing him, I didn’t just sporadically feel this way, I overwhelming felt the desire to stop than keep going.

So after the Christmas vacation we came home and we let E know of our plan. We were going to have a “bye bye Nursies” party. We went to Target and he got to pick out frosting and sprinkles and a special toy and a sippy cup to put Milk in when he needed a cuddle instead of nursies. The morning before we went to Target, I nursed E one last time, not sure if it would be the last. I had planned to nurse him once after Target before the party started but he declared at Target that he was done. I was relieved and sad all at the same time! We came home baked a cake, let him decorate, opened his toy and sang a Bye Bye to nursies. E loved it, but we knew it wouldn’t be this easy. Going to bed he asked to nurse, we offered Milk in the sippy cup instead, the next morning he woke up and asked. We offered the sippy again. Over the next three weeks, E continued to ask for nursies on and off, with only a few melt downs, but I never caved because I knew we were in for the long haul and my Mothers intuition told me that he was handling it ok, none of the meltdowns were unbearable. But surprisingly instead of life getting easier, E got alot harder, since he wasn’t getting his comfort from nursing he now needs me to hold him a lot more, which isn’t always easy when you have a 10 month old that needs to be held.  He also had a harder time when I would leave home without him (which isn’t often).

If I had to do it over again, would I have weaned him, yes! Was it hard to put my needs before his, yes! But I knew that I had also given him a lot and for the greater good of our family, I had to do this. I understand that many reading my story may not agree that I stopped him instead of allowing him to stop on his own, while others will say, wow you did it for three years that was plenty. I vascilate between the two, but that is motherhood, finding the common balance for your whole family and using your intuition to find that balance.