My Adventures in Tandem Nursing

If you know much about me, you know I’m a huge advocate for breastfeeding. I encourage all women to try it for as long as they possibly can—the benefits of breastfeeding are just too great to pass up. When I began my breastfeeding journey back in April 2011, I never would’ve guessed I would have nursed as successfully as I have. I also never would’ve guessed I’d still be nursing my two and a half year old alongside her newborn sister.

The age old questions always come up when people find out I’m “still” nursing my toddler. “Why? Is there even still a benefit for her? Why don’t you cut the cord?” Ah, but I plan to nurse her until she leaves for college, like that freaky YouTube video about the British eight year old that still suckled from the teet. Joke. Here’s my answers to those questions. Why do I still do it? Because she still wants it. Instead of being attached to a stuffed animal or special blanket for comfort, she has the boob. It’s always been this way. And, while many people think two and a half is practically school age, she’s still a baby. Yeah, she can talk and run and eat food and drink whatever she wants. But she’s still only been on this planet for 2 years and 7 months, and that’s a very short amount of time to figure out how to comfort herself without her lifeline of the milky fun-bags. Is there a benefit? Absolutely. My kid doesn’t get sick. Like, ever. She had one bout of pink eye when she was 8 months old, and that’s basically the only illness she’s ever had. You know how we cured the pink eye? Breast milk. You know why she doesn’t get sick? Breast milk. My antibodies against various illnesses, colds, flues and the like get transferred to her through the milk. So while we may have both been exposed to a bacteria, she most likely won’t get it, as she’s getting pumped full of my built-up supply of cold busters. Breast milk also has a plethora of vitamins and nutrients that she couldn’t possibly get anywhere else for the freeness that she gets it. We all know breast milk is the “best milk” when babies are super young, and the milk doesn’t get “less nutritious” over time, so why not give it to toddlers, who need the calories and health benefits just as much as a newborn.

I was also told once that I should just pump and feed it to her in a cup so that she doesn’t have the act of nursing anymore. I laughed and told them what a pain in the ass that would be, when she can just drink straight from the tap. That’s like going and milking your cow every time you want one glass of milk. I never had the time or energy for that. So we have continued. I nursed her through my whole pregnancy, which hurt and was uncomfortable and some days I really, really wanted to quit, but I thought to myself how unfair of me. I was going to be bringing a new baby into the world, whom I knew I would be nursing, and I didn’t think it would be fair for me to put a tension on my girls’ relationship by forcing the eldest to no longer find comfort in nursing. Maybe she’d forget about nursing quickly, or get over it, or that I’m being overly sensitive about the impacts of my decisions when my child is only two. But I didn’t want to start their relationship off by withholding breastfeeding.

So, on the day my sweet Anora was born, Evelyn joined her in their first tandem nursing session. Evelyn jumped on her side, “regular boobie” as she calls it, while Anora nursed from “owie boobie”. Sidestory: When I was pregnant with Anora, one of my boobs hurt really bad when Evelyn nursed, so that one was off limits for about three months. In that time, Evelyn named it owie boobie, because it was an owie for mommy. Such an original name for my breast. It felt really natural to nurse them both simultaneously, so I smiled for a picture and let them hold hands while they nursed together. Seriously, there are few things sweeter in life than providing the ultimate comfort meal to both your children at the same time. It makes you feel like a super hero.

After about five days of hearing, “Mommy BOOBIE BOOBIE BOOBIE MOMMY BOOOOOBIEEEEEEE!!!”, however, I decided that sweet Evelyn needed to back off the boob a little bit. She had reverted back to using diapers (after 3 months diaper free… broke my freaking heart), and was experiencing some severe toddler breast milk poops. Like she had eaten an entire box of laxatives and then would have HUGE blow out shits in her diaper. Gnarliest side-effect ever. It took two days to get her to only nurse in the morning, before nap, and before bed. Occasionally during the first two weeks, I’d also throw in a middle of the night nursing, because Anora just couldn’t drink enough and I was getting really engorged and leaking like a faucet. So I’d call to my professional sucker and let her take the edge off.

However, when Anora turned two weeks, I met with my dear friend Brianna for coffee, and she sat with me while I moaned and groaned about my newborn, who was so much different at nursing than Evelyn was. Anora was so gassy that her stomach was hard and distended, despite my attempts at bicycling her legs, she only nursed for about 5 minutes before falling asleep, then fifteen minutes later would wake up screaming in hunger, she would be awake for hours in the middle of the night groaning and grunting and crying, and something just felt off. My supply was also getting less every day, which was super not supposed to happen.

“Have you checked her for a tongue and lip tie?” she asked me.

“The midwife and pediatrician both said she didn’t have one.”

“But have you checked?”

I gave her a blank stare, then shoved my fingers into my grunting baby’s mouth. Her upper lip was really restricted and I couldn’t move it far. She also had pretty bad nursing blisters on her upper lip from chaffing while nursing. Then I checked under her tongue—if she tried to move it, it would turn heart shaped, the frenulum (that little skin flap under your tongue that connects it to the bottom of your mouth) pulling tight on the tip of her tongue. Not normal. Not good for nursing. Brianna’s son had both a tongue and lip tie, and Brianna had to supplement with donor breast milk and use a device called an SNS for the first 5 months of his life until she finally got a supply and he finally figured out how to make his mouth suck milk out. So she knew the repercussions from having a baby that didn’t latch well. She suggested I do my own research about the issue, and then see an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor in Portland named Dr. Ghaheri who did laser revisions of tongue and lip ties.

I told James, crying because I was admitting that I was struggling and that our baby’s mouth wasn’t perfect, and he said “Yep, let’s do whatever we need to to make things easier for all of us.”

The revision happened when Anora was 3 weeks. Dr. Ghaheri was super kind and cool, asking me questions about nursing, my struggles, how I was feeling, and reassurance that things would begin to improve. He also commended me for continuing to nurse Evelyn, because she was the only reason I still had a milk supply left. Anora’s ties prohibited her from emptying the breast fully, so over time, my body started thinking it didn’t need to produce very much milk anymore. The downward spiral of milk loss was only partially stopped thanks to Evelyn, who was fully emptying the milk supply three times a day. Without her, there was a very good possibility that I would’ve had to supplement, which would’ve added bottle feeding into the mixture, and could’ve made Anora nipple confused and tanked my supply into the sad pits of emptiness.

After a quick searing of the laser, we said goodbye to the tongue and lip ties and hello to our newly improved frenulum-free infant. The first day sucked. She screamed and screamed, which hurt her tongue more, which made her scream more. When she tried to nurse, she didn’t know what to do with her tongue, so she kept lifting it, which made my nipple stab her cauterized laser wound, which made her scream, which made her tongue hurt more. DO YOU SEE HOW VICIOUS THIS CYCLE WAS? We also took her to our amazing chiropractor in Keizer, Dr. Weaver, who did a procedure called cranial-sacral therapy, and basically very gently massaged our three week olds’ muscles into alignment. Because there was so much tension in her mouth from the poor latch, it was radiating down her body, also attributing to the gas problems since she was all tense and out-of-whack. Day two was better. Day three, the gas problems were almost gone. Day four she slept wonderfully, lapping up the milk and nursing all day because it wasn’t exhausting anymore. At a week and a half post revision, we saw sunnier skies on our horizon.

Our girl is now 8 weeks old, and she’s nursing like a champ. It has taken her about this long for her latch to 100% improve, because she still had to train her little muscles to work normally instead of the way they were. Her gas is now normal, no more struggling all the time. I’m also on a dairy-free diet, which has helped tremendously, though makes me a little sad whenever I think about grilled cheese sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, sour cream and ice cream. Also, most coffee shops charge you like $.60 extra for soy, which is some serious bullshit, but I’m adjusting. Literally whatever I can do to make things easier on Anora, I’ll do it. She’s now the smiliest, alert and strong 8 week old I’ve ever seen. She can roll over from her stomach to her back both left and right, and she’s trying REALLY hard to roll from back to front. Her head control is damn good and she’s starting to talk and coo and do all the adorable baby things that perfect babies should do. Unlike James’-mini Evelyn, Anora is more of a mommy’s girl, and prefers to snuggle me and lay her head on my bare boob to fall asleep. We also proudly co-sleep, and there’s nothing sweeter than nursing and cuddling a tiny baby all night long (especially because I’m getting pretty good sleep, which is literally the greatest thing on the planet for a mother of two). And, thanks to tandem nursing, I’m now 7 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight and plan to begin working out any day now… I swear, I’ll find time for exercise sometime.

Tandem nursing is not for everyone. Nursing your toddler until they’re three is also not for everyone. However, these are completely normal for almost every other culture that’s out there. The stigma that we have about extended breastfeeding, tandem nursing and nursing while pregnant is so sad. I am the kind of person who is very forward and very proud of my accomplishments, and I hope that when my girls are mothers themselves, they don’t feel any sort of embarrassment to follow the same boobie-path that I have. I raise my glass of freshly-pumped liquid gold to all the moms who have nursed, will nurse and are still nursing their babes—we have accomplished amazing things.