Nursing Two

I've not written anything about tandem nursing for fear that it is too much for a public blog, but it's such a big part of where we are now that if I don't address it then I'll be leaving out a huge part of my life. Why do I think it's too much? I assume that anyone in western society that hasn't nursed a child or isn't in the medical profession thinks it's weird for a 2 year old to nurse. Hopefolly I'm wrong, but I was guilty of this myself before I new so much about mommy's milk. I remember when Lucas was an infant and I saw a friend nursing her 7 month old after he crawled up to her and asked for it. It made me feel uncomfortable even though I was a nursing mother as well. I now realize that any nursing child that is older than Lucas seems strange. This was more the case when he was 1yr old since I don't see many children older than him nursing now. I wasn't breastfed and didn't know anything about it until I became pregnant. I planned to do it for 1 year, but 1 year came and went, and then 2 years came and went and we are still nursing. People would ask me when I was pregnant if I was going to wean Lucas before the baby was born and I was like, how the heck would I do that? I've just always assumed he would self wean. I didn't do any research or prep work on tandem nursing before Ellen was born because I assumed it was natural and it would just all work out. I was naive to think it would be so easy, but I'm seeking support now with La Leche League and other groups and friends in Raleigh. The first few weeks were hard emotionally for me. I would get frustrated with Lucas for wanting to do something that he'd done his whole life. I have recently learned that that's a natural reaction caused by hormones. Kind of like the mama cub protecting the baby cub from anyone trying to take it's food. Thankfully that feeling went away after a few weeks and now I feel the same strong bond with Lucas that I've always felt. The hardest part of nursing both of them is bedtime. We can't seem to get the timing right of who goes down first. Since they both nurse to sleep, mommy has to be there and if they want to go to sleep at the same time we have a problem. One night Jeff had a headache and went to bed early. I was putting Lucas to sleep when Ellen woke up. If I told Lucas to hold on then he'd have gotten up and I would have had to start over with him, so I brought Ellen to Lucas's room with us and both of them nursed to sleep. It was so peaceful and so easy and I felt like Super Mom for figuring it out. We did that again last night and had the same experience. I would have thought that Lucas would have not wanted to share mommy during bedtime, but he asked for Ellen to come with us and touched her little cheek until she fell asleep. So for us tandem nursing is not easy, but it's not that hard either... and everyone is happy.