Thoughts on Weaning, Tandem Nursing, and Grown-Up Food

Giving babies bites of grown-up food is like giving dogs scraps of table-food. Now whenever I eat, Isabelle won’t leave me alone until I share MY food with HER!


I started feeding Isabelle baby food sooner than I would have liked. For me, crazy pregnancy hormones were not only messing with my sensitive digestive system, but my milk supply as well. I was so worried that Isabelle wasn’t getting enough milk, so I supplemented her diet with YoBaby organic whole-milk yogurt, baby food, and goat’s milk.

Feeding her baby food certainly has its benefits. After seven months of exclusively breastfeeding, a new world of freedom was opened to us both – she was no longer dependent on me for food, and other people were able to give me a little break by feeding her. It was nice.  And, for the most part, she loves to eat food.

After a while, Isabelle was just nursing for comfort – just to go to sleep for her afternoon naps and at nighttime. But I wanted her to learn other ways of being comforted, because with little Lacey on her way, I knew I wouldn’t be able to nurse her all the time (like when I was in labor and we were staying overnight in the hospital).

For us, weaning was easy and effortless. I just brought her in the nursery and rocked her to sleep. She rooted around only a few times, but never cried. She was completely weaned in early October, about a month ago. And it was a good thing too, because my ENT (ear, nose, and throat doctor) ended up putting me on antibiotics and steroids to get rid of my cough (which worked, by the way, my cough is almost gone).

It’ll be interesting to see what happens when Lacey comes in a few weeks. In a book that I’ve been reading, Adventures in Tandem Nursing, many mothers have shared stories about their weaned toddlers wanting to nurse again when they see the new baby nursing. I don’t know how I feel about this. On one hand, I’ve heard that it can be a wonderful bonding experience for us as a family. And I don’t think I’d mind nursing both of them when we’re at home. But when we’re out somewhere, like Mass, someone’s house, or shopping, I don’t want to have to struggle to nurse both of them.  It’s one of those things that I’ll have to wait and see how everything goes.  All I can do is try to be flexible and respond as best I can to my babies' needs. 

And I have to say, that Isabelle is so cute eating grown-up food.  She loves rice and gravy, and the other day when my parents came to visit, she ate the spaghetti I made!  And now whenever I eat something, she thinks she's entitled to some as well!  Annoying sometimes, but cute.  And good practice for eating what the rest of the family is eating, and not just "kid food."  That's what I want to try to teach my kids to do, lol.  I was a very picky eater (still am sometimes), so we'll see how that works out.