Athene Numphe

After I stopped pumping at work, we took a few steps back and now Little Prince wants to breastfeed generally as soon as he sees me after daycare/work. But it’s short sessions and then he’s happy to play.

However, we are making more slow progress. A little over a month ago we were at Firehouse Subs for sandwiches before going to our weekly Dungeons & Dragons game. The food was almost ready and Little Prince asked to nurse. I really just wanted to get to game, so I told him that since we were out he could “Touch the milk” (aka reach his hand down my shirt) but he had to wait to “drink the milk” (aka breastfeed) until we got to our GMs house. I meant it for only that one time, but apparently it had an effect on him. Now, especially when we are out, he’ll sometimes ask to touch the milk instead of drink it. When he touches it, we tease and I ask him if it’s still there or he’ll tell me that it’s still there. I use this at home too when we’re going to daycare/work in the morning and it’s too late to nurse him (I have a no nursing after 7am on weekdays rule, except for in special circumstances, or we’ll never get out the door). I like that I can still give him the comfort of my breasts without it turning into a nursing session every time.

This is what breastfeeding a toddler looks like. He said “Lie down mommy. On the floor.” And then “More milk” and latched on.

He still does like to breastfeed a lot, which is fine. But there are times where he just starts bouncing back and forth between “other-side, other-side, other-side” or when he declared he was finished and then wants to start up again a minute or two later. At that point, I usually give him a slow count to finish up, somewhere between 5-10. He almost always pops off at least two numbers before the end of the count and then goes along his merry way.

So we’re probably down to about 4-6 times in 24 hours during the week and a bit more on the weekends. Still don’t see an end date, but I’m glad that I’m able to enforce a few limits around when, where, and for how long we feed and that he is fine with that (most of the time).

A few days ago when he was “naked baby” he pulled at his own nipples and tried to see about getting milk out of them. One day he’ll figure it out, but until then, it amuses me greatly.

Oh, and last weekend I gave away the rest of my “stash” to mothers of adopted twins, since when I went on a three day trip he never once asked Darius for mommy-milk. So that makes five families I donated milk to in the course of two years, giving Little Prince a total of seven milk siblings.

Originally published at my baby blog. Please leave any comments there.