Comfort and Tandem Nursing
Eliane P.
IL USA
From: NEW BEGINNINGS, Vol. 17 No. 6, p. 49
Our family has just been
blessed with the birth of our third child, another beautiful girl. Once
again, I find myself tandem nursing. During my pregnancy and the first
few days of Gabrielle's life, I have discovered a few things that have
made my tandem nursing experience more comfortable and therefore more
enjoyable, or at least manageable.
During my pregnancy nursing
was sometimes very painful while at other times virtually painless.
Even though I had read and heard about the importance of proper positioning
and latch-on during my three years as a nursing mother and a La Leche
League Leader in a tandem nursing Group, I couldn't believe that after
two years of nursing my daughter could be latched on wrong. But when
I looked closely I noticed that she was often not opening her mouth
wide enough and was therefore sucking on my nipple. I now believe that
when my milk supply decreased around the middle of my pregnancy, she
lost her incentive for sucking properly. Since at that point she was
nursing only for comfort she no longer needed to latch on properly to
get milk out. Telling her to open her mouth wide and making sure that
her upper lip was flanged out helped to make nursing her more comfortable.
The other thing that I did
differently with this baby was to apply Lansinoh®,
a lanolin-based ointment for breastfeeding mothers, as soon as my nipples
started feeling sore from nursing the new baby. Even though I had been
nursing for five straight years, my nipples got sore after my daughter's
birth. After 36 hours of using Lansinoh® after
each nursing, the pain disappeared.
I had weaned my first daughter,
Cassandra, when her sister Audrey was two months old, because I thought
that my physical and psychological discomfort with tandem nursing passed
on negative feelings that outweighed benefits to her from continuing
to nurse. Even though the experience was rather unpleasant for me, I
hoped that I could tandem nurse again if I needed to, because I believed
that continuing nursing, if only for a short time, helped Cassandra
adjust to having a younger sibling and has contributed to making their
relationship as wonderful as it as. Knowing that I could always wean
if things weren't working out, I hoped that the next time around could
be different, especially since I was a little older and therefore more
mature, experienced, patient, and better at setting limits, I am now
thrilled to say that my wishes have come true. I am now a happy tandem
nursing mother! I hope that my experience can help and encourage other
mothers.
Last updated November 13, 2006 by njb.
Page last edited Sun Oct 14 09:29:34 UTC 2007.
