I think tandem nursing in "traditional" cultures is, and always has been,
extremely rare.  Usually, there were post-partum sex taboos to prevent
another pregnancy when the mother had a young nursling.  These ranged from a
few months to many years.  For example, among the Gikuyu of Kenya, prior to
about the 1960s, children nursed and slept with their mothers until they
were 5-6-7 years of age.  Then they were weaned and kicked out of mother's
bed and dad was allowed back in.  Among the Dani of Highland New Guinea,
traditionally they abstained from sex for 5 years after each birth, even
though the children were only breastfed for 2 years.

Even in the absence of long post-partum sex taboos, if the mother had
lactational amenorrhea for 2-3 years and then became pregnant again, often
the older child would be of an age to be considered old enough to wean, or
would wean on their own.  And if the mother is undernourished, she tends to
have longer lactational amenorrhea than if she is well-nourished, so it is
less likely that she'll be faced with another pregnancy when she still has a
very young child.

In Mali, the traditional post-partum sex taboo was until the child was
walking and talking well, so 1-2 years.  And when mothers did become
pregnant, they weaned as soon as they 'decided' they were pregnant again,
because of beliefs that the milk from a pregnant mother would be dangerous
for the nursing toddler.  Women often didn't 'decide' they were pregnant
until well along in the pregnancy, however, for several reasons.  They might
experience a missed menstrual period for many reasons, including increased
frequency of nursing by a sick child or malnutrition or illness in the
mother, so they didn't necessarily interpret a skipped period as being
pregnant.  Also, many many pregnancies ended in early miscarriage,
especially during the rainy season when malaria was prevalent, so they
wouldn't wean their toddler until they were pretty darn sure they were
pregnant and weren't going to have an early miscarriage.  In Mali,
grandmothers might tandem nurse with a grandchild while they babysat.

I suspect that the society with the highest level of tandem nursing is the
modern day United States, where we combine excellent nutrition in the
mothers with semi-scheduled feedings and sleeping through the night at an
early age and only six weeks of post-partum sex taboos -- such that the
mother's fecundity returns early and she gets pregnant again, while still
devoted to the idea of child-led weaning.  I'm sure my sample of mothers
nursing children to age 3 and beyond has a much higher percentage of tandem
nursing situations than any where in the world or any time else in the
history of the world.

Kathy Dettwyler
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