What It’s Like Breastfeeding a 16 Month Old

Hi y’all! For those who don’t know, today marks the first day of World Breastfeeding Week 2019! Cam and I got to celebrate that by doing a breastfeeding photo shoot with my very dear friend Gen, owner of Hayden Jane Photography (she’s amazing! Go give her a follow on insta, I promise you won’t be disappointed). She came to our home yesterday, we played some music, opened up the windows for some natural light, and created memories I will cherish forever.

When we started our breastfeeding journey, 16 months ago today, it looked VERY different than it does now. Obviously because nursing a newborn and nursing a toddler is inherently different. But also because we were both learning. Every single day we were learning: how to latch, how to hold, how to position, what foods to eat and not to eat. I think that’s why breastfeeding for any amount of time, for a mama feels like such an accomplishment. It can be so intense and scary and amazing and hard and rewarding, all at the same time. Nourishing a human with your body is an accomplishment. I read recently that a full time job with 3 weeks vacation amounts to 1,960 hours. While breastfeeding for one year amounts to roughly 1,800 hours. I mean, women are so incredible, aren’t they?

I posted a photo from our shoot on my Instagram today and a fellow BFing mama commented about how her baby, “would never stay latched if someone was taking pictures while she was nursing.” And I told her I 100% remember when Cam was the same way. If we had tried this 3-4 months ago, he would have been way too distracted by a photographer (shoot, our dogs being too near us distracted him) and he would unlatch just to see what was going on! See, our breastfeeding journey has evolved. And rightfully so. Our babies grow so fast. They are constantly developing: physically, emotionally, and cognitively.

Today, we mainly nurse for sleep. Before naps and before bed. Luckily, we do not nurse TO sleep. When Cam was 5 months old (and I had been back to work for 2 months, i.e. 13 hours shifts and a completely exhausted mama. ) so we decided to sleep train him. Because of that, he’s been in his crib since then and he self night weaned around his first birthday. It was important to me not to completely take any nursing sessions away from him during his first year of life, as multiple national and world health organizations recommend breast milk or formula as babies main source of nutrition until 12 months old. We also followed the Baby Led Weaning approach when starting solids for Cam. So around 9-10 months, Cam began actually ingesting larger amounts of actual food. He wasn’t relying on BM (breast milk) to keep him as full/satiated anymore and his need for nursing slowed on its own.

Our nursing sessions look 50/50 like a calm, relaxing cuddle sesh and a straight up gymnastic session. Read: GymNurstics! (thanks to my friend Megan for that phrase haha). There are times where Cam will stay laying down and nurse for an hour if I let him and there are times where he is literally crawling all over me, standing, flipping around.. you name it. I usually don’t allow those sessions to last very long, just bc I don’t want to associate nursing with play time. But that’s just my personal preference. If I’m being honest, I also don’t think I have very much milk left. I’m not 100% sure because I stopped pumping a couple months ago and I know I do have some supply, but in my heart of hearts, I know most of our nursing sessions are for comfort. And I’m ok with that.

With all that being said, our breast feeding journey has been just that. A journey. Is hasn’t always been beautiful or easy. It hasn’t always been fun. There were times where I felt trapped. And times where I thought the weight of being Cam’s only source of nutrition would crush me. But it didn’t. And I’m glad to be where we are now. Breastfeeding is such a personal and special experience. I’m happy to be able to share it with you all. XOXO – JT