Breastfeeding Moms
My son will be 1 in a week! It's been a very rough road, but I don't want to stop at a year. I would like advice about nursing a toddler. Do the infants and solids rules still apply? How often is normal? Thanks!
Replies
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The only rule to change is the nursing before solids. Normal toddler nursing is whenever he wants it. Some reduce the number of feedings drastically and others continue nursing constantly. My 21 month old still nurses many times throughout the day. His brother was down to only a few times a day at this age.
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Like with infants, normal is a relative term! If you do not want to wean, simply nurse whenever he asks to and go with the flow of solids. You don't have to nurse before solids but it is not bad to do so... if he asks to nurse, let him then if he seems hungry still, feed him solids. My daughter gradually changed her habit from always wanting to nurse to eating more solids first and wanting to nurse whenever. She is now 26 months and nurses 3-4 times a day typically but that varies as well.
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First of all Congrats!!!
Every child is different. I would say just because he is a year you don't need to do anything different than you were doing before. Of course he will be eatting more solids now, so the nursing will slack up a little.
I have been nursing my son since day one and he is now 32 months. He still nurses, but its about 2 times a day if that.
Good Luck and keep up the good work Momma!
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I forgot to add... Solids will GRADUALLY become more of his diet than breastmilk. We still have days where Johnathan nurses more than he eats.
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I would say just nurse whenever he wants to nurse! Or do what you feel led to do... if you want to continue feeding him solids before..I think that's good....or after, but really get him more into the solids. :)
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Just like the others said, nurse on demand, and don't worry so much about whether solids or nursing comes first.
It is totally normal for a 12-20 month old to actually nurse more than they eat, so don't worry so long as he's not losing weight he's still getting a lot from your milk.
Nursing manners are really important to teach around now, because bad nursing manners in toddlers leads a lot of women to wanting to wean early - so make sure you teach him how to behave nicely while nursing.
Good article on kellymom about nursing manners - http://www.kellymom.com/bf/older-baby/nursing-manners.html
And soon enough he will begin to start using words, so settle on a word you want him to use for asking to nurse. My daughter started off saying "boobies!" all the time, and that got quite embarrassing in shops when all anyone could hear was "Mummy, boobies!!" - so we ended up changing the word she uses to "teta" (Spanish for breasts) - and she now uses that, which is a little more discreet.
Well done for nursing this long, and great choice for continuing, good luck.