Celebrate World Breastfeeding Week: Tandem Breastfeeding

Happy World Breastfeeding Week 2013!

This week, we will be celebrating by sharing real-life breastfeeding victories that you, our readers, shared with us! We were so thrilled to see all of the wonderful photos and heartwarming stories, and we cannot wait for you to read them all.  Each day this week, we will be celebrating a different “category” all in the theme of “Breastfeeding Victories.”  Any of you that have breastfed know that it is never a smooth-sailing ship, so each and every story is worth a celebration!

Today, we celebrate victory stories for mamas who have tandem breastfed!  Our photo contest winner will be leading off our post…..

I got pregnant when my son was about 7 months old and my daughter was born when my son was 17 months old.  My son quit nursing when he was 13 months and picked back up when he was 14 months.  My pregnancy progressed later and later.  I ended up carrying up to 44 weeks based on my original due date (they changed it in the last week of my pregnancy so I was “only” 43 weeks pregnant).  

We were planning a home birth and I had seen an OB who recommended an induction because of how late the pregnancy was progressing.  He said breaking my water would be the best and safest way to try and jump start labor.  So we decided that I would schedule a hospital induction for the next morning and I would try getting labor going that night at home.  My midwife came over and ruptured my amniotic sac.  We waited for a few hours for labor to pick up.  My son woke up in the middle of the night and I decided to nurse him.  That is what ultimately got my labor going!  I went from 0 – 60 and from the time he nursed until I was holding my daughter was about 2 and a half hours.  He rejoined us after the birth and met his sister for the first time.  

From day one, they would nurse together.  He loved it.  He was so in love with his little sister and would just watch her and giggle.  He was only nursing once or twice a day and he didn’t even increase the number of nursing sessions.  Sometimes he’d ask to nurse just because he saw his sister nursing but not often.  It was absolutely amazing!  

I’d encourage anyone that if they had the opportunity to tandem nurse, to do it.  It is so special to me and I think it helped them bond.  My son weaned again around 19 months.  He went probably 2 months without asking.  Then, without warning, when he got sick….that’s all he wanted.  Just a little comfort.  I still let him every month or so when he asks.  My daughter is still nursing and she’s 8 months old.  It feels just perfect to me that my son got to see her within hours of her birth and they got to bond over something so special.  They would hold each others hands and play with their feet.  I’m hoping to have the opportunity to do it again in the future.