Karen,

I am currently 29 weeks pregnant and was nursing both my 5 year old and my 2
1/2 until about 2 months ago.  The 5 year old (turned 5 in January) has not
asked to nurse and nursing him while being pregnat was a wonderful experience
since he pretty much told me that my milk started changing flavor around 2
months!  My 2 1/2 continues to nurse, but not for very long.  I did not
experience the extremely sore nipples with my second as I did with the first!!

With my first, I did experience very tender/sore nipples during my first
trimester and in addition to that I also had an accessory nipple right next to
the nipple which was very sore.  I tried nursing on that side but it was very
sore and eventually tried a breast shield for a little while.  This seemed to
help for a little while.  My son was very aware of  the pain that I was under
and when the shield seemed to be something that he was not very happy with I
would nurse him while I held my little finger on that "accessory" nipple.
That worked out pretty good.  Since my son was very vocal, I was able to
explain to him that he could only nurse for a very short time on the painful
side which he did without any problem.  We continued to nurse for the rest of
the pregnancy even though it was for "short periods" of time.  One of the best
memories that I have is of my son coming in to the birth center only hours
after my second had been born and him nursing on one side as the neborn nursed
on the other.  I was absolutely lovely!!

With my second (the 2 1/2 ) when I noticed that I was starting to get sore, I
did make sure that the positioning was correct and that made a big difference
(I had no pain).  I had a lot more problems with him nursing with this
pregnancy only because during the first 4 months I would get very nauseas
every single time he nursed!  That was very unpleasant.  The other problem
that I had was that this one would really want to nurse when he was in a bad
mood and crying histerically and at that time he would really latch on badly,
but because of his mood I could not reason with him to change the positioning
and I would simple have to get him off.  I went through episodes of feeling
guilty for unlatching him while I knew that he needed me and at the same time,
I would be angry with him for not understanding that he could not do that to
me!  I know part of this anger was in part because of the pregnancy and being
very tired and part was that my second is not very vocal so it is very hard to
understand what it is that he wants.  I have had my feelings of inadequacy
with this baby and really trying very hard for him not to feel that
breastfeeding is a "bad experience" especially now.  Things are much better
now, he nurses for very short periods of time and then kisses my breast and if
I forget to let him do that he really lets me know it!!  The one thing that I
have noticed lately is that I actually get pleasure from him nursing . . . now
that is a very weird thing to get used to an accept!!  Since I had read this
happening with some mothers I really don't feel so bad about it, but it is a
very strange feeling.

Anyway, I do hope that both of my children will try nursing again when the
baby is born because those memories are truly wonderful.

See ya,
Yvonne
****************************************
Yvonne C. Bannister, LLL, IBCLC
Private Practice/Baby's BestFeeding
"A mother holds her baby .  .  . who holds the breast and gets the best!"