It might be planned, or it might be unexpected, but suddenly you’ve discovered that you’re pregnant again, and your baby or toddler hasn’t weaned. Often a woman’s first thought may be that she has to stop nursing. Or does she?

Some people have heard that continuing to nurse will jeopardize the pregnancy. The truth is, if you have not had trouble maintaining a pregnancy before, then it is very unlikely that continuing to breastfeed will increase your risk of miscarriage.

I have nursed three of my children through the following pregnancy, and am still currently tandem nursing my youngest two, a toddler of 2 1/2 and an infant of six months of the time of this writing. Since nursing past the age of one, not to mention tandem nursing itself, is so rare these days, you may be wondering how it works in reality. Before I myself had experienced it, I found that the only items I read about it spoke of tandem nursing in glowing, romantic terms. While there are definite advantages and some tandem relationships are idealistic, reality should not be glossed just to promote this choice.

The following comes from an email post I wrote on an NFP list to which I belong, several months ago. It describes the realities of each of my experiences of tandem nursing in detail.

Well, it’s been very different with each of the tandem pairs I’ve had. With the first, they would contentedly nurse alongside each other, and I tandemed them for a year. The older boy wouldn’t nurse necessarily every time the baby did, but probably 3-4 times a day. Oliver was 23 mo when Simon was born, so it wasn’t so much nutritional as comfort and habit for the most part.

The next set was our hardest. Simon was 20 mo when Paul was born. I’ve noticed that when the milk switches to colostrum during pregnancy, they tend to cut back on nursing a bit. There just isn’t as much quantity either. But once my milk came in, Simon wanted to nurse every time Paul did, and if I told him no, he would become very angry and demanding. It was quite surprising, as this is not his usual temperament at all! After 2 months, my husband finally put his foot down and told me to wean him. My husband being who he is, this was very unlike him so I listened and weaned. Also, Simon is our skinny-minny and he was losing weight because he was nursing so much and not taking solids. So it was best for all of us to wean. The interesting thing that happened with this experience, NFP-wise, is that I was nursing SO much I ended up having a very fluid discharge for a couple weeks right around 8 weeks after birth. After consulting the NFP-professional list, we decided it was a sign of completely shutting down my ovaries, and my amenorrhea ended up lasting the longest with Paul.

Currently I’m nursing Paul and Eliza. Paul was 27mo when Eliza was born a month ago. I let him nurse roughly twice a day, in the morning after breakfast and in the afternoon after he wakes from his nap. He hasn’t shown any jealousy that Eliza nurses more than he does. Sometimes, if he’s close and Eliza comes off the breast he’ll try to push it back into her mouth. I don’t reserve a breast for each of them. I usually try to nurse Eliza first so she has her fill, and then Paul can nurse. I was careful not to nurse Paul too much through my first engorgement after birth either, because I didn’t want to stimulate too much production. My intention is to let him nurse twice a day, so I kept with that during those days too.

Though tandem nursing can be a struggle at times, what parenting choice doesn’t also have it’s struggles? It is completely worth it! Positive benefits include potential lengthening of postpartum infertility, thus increased child-spacing naturally, and strengthened bonding between siblings and continued closeness between the older child and Mommy.

I have witnessed the increased bonding that others who have tandem nursed claim with their children. My youngest 4 who have tandem nursed alongside their siblings are extremely close. Closer than the oldest three are. We also home birth, which I’ve also seen increases the sibling bond, since Mom didn’t disappear to a hospital for 2-3 days and then reappear with a strange new member of the family.

Also, none of my tandemed children have been dependent on a pacifier or their thumb past the first year and a half. They are soothed through closeness to Mom, until they can self-soothe in a healthy manner.

As with any childrearing advice, your mileage may vary. The uniqueness of each child is what keeps this world beautiful. I hope, though, that reading the realities of a not-so-common relationship can encourage others to try, or keep with it until both Mom and the children are ready for weaning.