« Well, one day she was nursing, and looked at me and said "baby will drink
Mommies milk?".  I told her yes, and she preceded to tell me that she didn't
want baby to drink Mommies milk.  I asked her what the baby would drink and
she said "milk from the refridgerator, that I will get him and that I will
put in a
sippy cup".»

My older daughter was 2 yrs 8 mos when the younger was born.  We discussed
the baby needing to nurse lots before she was born, and I told the older
daughter that she would have to choose a side in order to share...and stick
to that side.  I think given that it gave her some *power*, it went over
pretty well.  She chose to nurse on the right side, and left the left side
to the newborn baby...and there was never EVER any jealousy over her sister
*with respect to nursing*.  She wouldn't have thought that her sister would
"drain her side dry" by nursing on the other side ;-) and she never had to
wait until her sister had had her fill and content herself with a "half
empty" breast (or rather, a breast which was flowing less quickly).  I
decided personally to do this partly thinking it could help with sibling
rivalry in that arena (and I think it did, but that's not to say there
wasn't plenty of rivalry elsewhere in their lives!) and also because I read
that the older child's side reverts back to milk that is appropriate for a
toddler after a while.  Also, when my younger daughter was 6 mos old or so
and I went to a conference and left the older daughter 3 nights with my
in-laws, I did not get horribly engorged on that side since it had become
accustomed to being nursed less frequently on...I did coax the younger to
nurse off it while she was asleep once during the middle of each night but
other than that, I was fine.  While I became lop-sided a little bit, I found
it was really very useful to have them both assigned their side.  I always
knew though, that had we had weight gain problems or a newborn who seemed
unsatisfied, that I would have had to make the older one share...I would
have probably tried to do so mostly while she wasn't around or was not
noticing.  As I am a classic oversupplier/overproducer I didn't ever think
this would be the case.  By the time the younger was 1 yr old she refused,
even while asleep, to nurse off her sister's side...she would wake fully and
want to switch sides.  Later, as a verbal toddler, she would tell me it
tasted wrong/icky.  I do personally think it also kept me from feeling icky
feelings myself about nursing two different mouth shapes and two different
types of suction...each side was used to its own "occupant" but on the rare
occasion when I did get one nursing off the other one's side (ie I would ask
the older one to help out and nurse more off the younger one's side if I had
mastitis) it DID feel very queer and unpleasant.

Older daughter weaned the month she turned 6.  Younger one weaned last
summer at 4.5.

Fio


-- 
Maman to Sandrine, 8, Nyssa 5, and laat lametjie due 8/08.
«The best love affairs are those we never had.» -- Norman Lindsay
«Dreams are like stars...you may never touch them, but if you follow them
they will lead you to your destiny.» -- Anonymous.

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