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Home › Articles › Breastfeeding Your Toddler › Nursing Beyond One Year Part Two

Nursing Beyond One Year Part Two

The Challenge of Nursing a Toddler

By Virginia Gilbert

Pages:  1  2  

Nursing Beyond One Year -Part II Like any other relationship, the one between a mother and her nursing child goes through transitions. "In an extended breastfeeding relationship, there definitely is a time when it changes," says Adrienne Wilde, a La Leche League leader in Hollywood, Calif. "Discipline begins to play a role. A mother has to get in touch with habit versus need and be clear about meeting her own needs."

Expanding on this notion, Wilde describes the toddler years as being challenging, whether or not a child is nursing. "I came to a point when nursing was overwhelming," Wilde says, speaking of her own experience. "I was resentful; I thought, 'I'm doing this all the time.'"

Wilde realized that she needed to set breastfeeding limits. By letting her son know she was no longer going to nurse on demand, she believes that she gave him the opportunity to cultivate other coping skills and that he actually found these boundaries freeing.

When Should You Wean?
Although every baby is born with a sucking instinct, some "grow out of it" sooner than others do. The AAP reports that many infants "lose interest in breastfeeding between 9 and 12 months or after they learn to drink from a cup." Often, however, this sudden lack of interest is only a temporary "nursing strike" which tends to arise, for instance, when a child is sick.

But if after assessing the situation, a mother decides her child genuinely has outgrown the need to breastfeed, probably neither would benefit from the mother trying to renew her baby's interest in the breast. "It's important for moms to realize, no matter how long they nurse their children, it's beneficial," says Wilde.


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