"Dry Breastfeeding means nursing your child weeks after he had his last nursing"

When my daughter was in the process of weaning herself (which took many months),
she started regularly going for long periods between feeds.  Sometimes she would
go two or three weeks between feeds, then breastfeed once.  sometimes she would
go for a few weeks and then feed three or four times in the next day or even
more over the next few days.

(This certainly had the effect of keeping me on my toes about whether I was
still a bf mother or not!)

My point:  knowing Iona, I certainly don't think she was "dry" nursing.  She
must have been receiving an ammount of milk she considered adequate when she
fed.  Her way of speaking about breastfeeding was "I want mummy milk", which
certainly suggests that she expected some output, not just comfort suckling.

I could express a drop of milk for years afterwards -- even when I was so ill
from post-viral fatigue syndrome that I stopped ovulating, I was still producing
a drop of milk.  Lactation is a wonderful system.

Incidentally, I asked her when she was planning to stop and she told me "On my
fourth birthday".  Her actual last feed was a few months before, but she
remembered and announced on her birthday "I have stopped now".  Obviously, up to
that point she was just choosing not to excercise her option.  My feelings?  It
was admirable to see someone so in control of something so central to herself.
If she could just be that focussed about her wants and needs with other
relationships, and other embodied experiences:  menstruation, sleeping with
boys/girls, pregnancy, illness, etc., etc.  I will be happy -- and envious.

Magda Sachs
Breastfeeding Supporter
The Breastfeeding Network, UK