18 month old's nursing habits

I just wondered what everyone else's experiences with extended nursing is...

My 18 month old is still nursing like a champ, at least every 4 hours, and
still not that interested in solid food although she has her days when she
eats and eats and eats.

I was just reading a post about a 15 mth old down to one nursing a day and
my DD is sooo far from that.

When did everyone else go down to the night time/morning nurse session
only???? (Not that I want to wean at all, just curious).

"CY" wrote in message
news:vIS_a.54$nf3.37@fed1read07...
I just wondered what everyone else's experiences with extended nursing
is...

My 18 month old is still nursing like a champ, at least every 4 hours, and
still not that interested in solid food although she has her days when she
eats and eats and eats.

My youngest is 17 months and nurses as often as he can, certainly more often
than 4-hourly during the day when my au pair isn't in charge and at least
once during the night, and eats loads of solids, to boot. So much for the
theory that toddlers live on air g!

I was just reading a post about a 15 mth old down to one nursing a day and
my DD is sooo far from that.

NONE of my kids were even close to being down to one nursing at 18 months
old, let alone 15 months.

When did everyone else go down to the night time/morning nurse session
only???? (Not that I want to wean at all, just curious).

Gosh, I can't really remember. Seems to me that Julian was down to one
session in the morning by about 2y10m, and down to three sessions (morning,
nap, bedtime) at around 2y6m. Aurora never really got down to one session
only. She was still nursing on demand several times per day when I weaned
her cold turkey at 2y3m (I was pregnant, she wasn't latching properly, I
couldn't seem to get her to relearn a proper latch, and nursing her was
making me want to climb out of my skin).
--
Be well, Barbara
(Julian [6], Aurora [4], and Vernon's [17mo] mom)
"Nobody died when Clinton lied." -- freeway sign

This week's special at the English Language Butcher Shop:
"They walk with an unsteady, shambling gate." -- Article in the San Diego
Union Tribune

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
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fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman

CY wrote:

When did everyone else go down to the night time/morning nurse
session only???? (Not that I want to wean at all, just curious).

Gabe's 25 months and we're nowhere near that point. He still loves to
comfort nurse, though - he'd do it all day if I'd let him.

--
iphigenia
www.tristyn.net

When did everyone else go down to the night time/morning nurse session
only???? (Not that I want to wean at all, just curious).

At about 18 months. I made an attempt (don't offer, don't refuse) to cut out
the earlier evening session (immediately after I got home from work) at around
15 months and it didn't work well. Although DS would be fine when I got home,
he'd have a meltdown an hour or two later, just when we were trying to eat
dinner, and I'd wind up nursing him then which wasn't very convenient. So I
went back to offering as soon as I got home and tried again later, and the
second time it worked fine.

Going from every 3-4 hours to 3-4 times a day was a little easier for me, I
think, because I WOH. In order to cut back on pumping, I periodically asked
the nanny to offer fewer bottles of ebm and see how it went. DS was fine with
that, so I went from pumping twice during the workday at 6 months, to once a
day at around 9 months, to not every day at around 12 months, to not at all at
13 months. Somewhere in there we also went from BF at 6:30, 9, and midnight to
just 6:30 and 9. So at 13 months he was nursing morning, evening, bedtime, and
sometimes during the night, and that's the pattern that held until 18 months.

At this point -- 30 months -- he's still nursing morning and bedtime, but some
mornings he doesn't nurse and doesn't seem to miss it, and nursing in the
middle of the night is relatively rare. On weekends when I'm home during the
day, he does sometimes nurse to sleep for his afternoon nap, but if BF isn't
convenient for whatever reason I can always distract him.

Holly
Mom to Camden, 2.5 yrs

CY wrote:
I just wondered what everyone else's experiences with extended
nursing is...

My 18 month old is still nursing like a champ, at least every 4
hours, and still not that interested in solid food although she has
her days when she eats and eats and eats.

I was just reading a post about a 15 mth old down to one nursing a
day and my DD is sooo far from that.

When did everyone else go down to the night time/morning nurse session
only???? (Not that I want to wean at all, just curious).

I couldn't tell you because neither of mine got down that low before I
weaned then. I weaned Hunter at 20 months and Luke at 26. At 18 months
Hunter nursed absolutely any time he could. Every hour if I would have
allowed it. I was pg and things weren't going so well so may have been a
special circumstance. Luke nursed about every 2-2.5 hours when we were
together at 18 months. I did get him mostly night weaned by 18-20 months
though.


--
Nikki
Mama to Hunter (4) and Luke (2)

In article vIS_a.54$nf3.37@fed1read07, "CY"
wrote:

When did everyone else go down to the night time/morning nurse session
only???? (Not that I want to wean at all, just curious).

At 29mo, we are still at about 5 feeds/day.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"...children should continue to be breastfed... for up to two years of age
or beyond." -- Innocenti Declaration, Florence, 1 August 1990

"CY" wrote in message news:vIS_a.54$nf3.37@fed1read07...
I just wondered what everyone else's experiences with extended nursing is...

My 18 month old is still nursing like a champ, at least every 4 hours, and
still not that interested in solid food although she has her days when she
eats and eats and eats.

I was just reading a post about a 15 mth old down to one nursing a day and
my DD is sooo far from that.

When did everyone else go down to the night time/morning nurse session
only???? (Not that I want to wean at all, just curious).

Well, ds is 25 months, is still nowhere near there. At least 4-6
times, sometimes more. I'm really hoping I don't have to do the
sudden weaning now that I'm pg! Mostly it's been ok, but last night
when he woke twice in a row, I wouldn't let him nurse the second time
due to tenderness. He was not very happy with me, but settled down
pretty quickly, thank goodness. (After night waking, he 99.9% of the
time nurses back to sleep.)

Irene
mom to Thomas 7/01
#2 EDD April 2004

In article vIS_a.54$nf3.37@fed1read07, "CY"
wrote:

When did everyone else go down to the night time/morning nurse session
only???? (Not that I want to wean at all, just curious).

My daughters cut way back on nursing after a year, but they'd never been really
demand-fed, except as newborns. They were nursing last thing at night only for
the last few months before weaning completely at 20 months. My son was totally
demand-fed and as a toddler was a very unpredictable nurser, lots one day and
hardly at all another. He finally self-weaned at something like 28 months, and
in the last month or two had been even less predictable, skipping days and then
coming back to it, that kind of thing. I expect it's much more a question of
the child's personality by that point (whereas with newborns there is such a
strong physical need for the milk that they are much more like one another,
though of course even in newborns there are differences).

--Helen

"Hillary Israeli" wrote ...

DGoree wrote:

*Personally, I think these toddlers who are down to just a morning and an
*evening nursing must live on the same planet as those children in the
parenting
*books who respond in such gratifying ways to the books' suggested
parental
*tactics.

That would be planet "my house," then

--
hillary israeli vmd http://www.hillary.net
"uber vaccae in quattuor partes divisum est."
not-so-newly minted veterinarian-at-large

Mine, too. The 15-month-old referenced earlier is mine - I had posted
previously about hitting that milestone. I have never, ever led him in a
"weaning" direction. I WOH full-time, he's in daycare, and he started to
refuse a bottle at about 7 or 8 months, due to an ear infection. We could
never get him back on, so we went to a sippy cup. He wouldn't take BM from
anything but "the tap", so pumping for EBM became pointless, and he drank
water until he was cleared for whole milk and juice on occasion. He nursed
when I picked him up from daycare, at home before bed, again in the morning.
During the day (weekdays, that is) he was on a sippy cup. When he started
to walk, just over 12 months, he became much too busy to come ask to nurse.
He often fell asleep without nursing because he pooped himself out. When we
wound up where we are today, with one morning nursing, it was a surprise to
me. But I can't honestly say that having him want to nurse more would be
welcome at this point. I think he and I have both evolved with our nursing
relationship to this point, and it's working ... for BOTH of us. I am quite
certain he'd be letting me know if it didn't work for him.

--
Gay, mama to Nicholas James 05/14/02