I have a cold, so I challenged myself to create several days of blog posts from just one evening of photos. Enjoy! It's been nine months since I embarked on my latest breastfeeding adventure - tandem feeding three children of different ages, or, as my friend Megan calls it, "triplex nursing." As I have found since I first began tandem nursing when Michael was born, success and sanity rest in setting appropriate boundaries. We have experimented and adjusted during the past several months, and I will document here the current status quo we are enjoying:

• Vi nurses on demand, day and night
• Michael was nursing on demand as well. I had to curtail the amount he was nursing, not because of excessive demand as in Nikki's case, but because of potty training. Michael's bladder fills quickly during a breastfeed, causing him to run to the toilet, come back for more numnums, and back and forth. Sometimes he wouldn't quite make it to the toilet, so he would clean up the mess then want to nurse again. In response, I initially curtailed further numnums if Michael wet his pants. This dramatically improved his accuracy in getting all his waste in the toilet. However, the back and forth to the toilet was still taking a lot of time and diminishing Vi's ability to nurse on demand.
• Now the rules are almost the same for Nikki and Michael. They each get "after breakfast numnums". Michael gets one numnum. I then require him to go use the toilet, wash his hands, and come back wearing the same clean, dry pair of pants. Once his hands are washed he has his second numnum on the other side. Nikki gets one numnum on one side if Michael keeps his pants dry during his mid-numnum toilet run. This is to give her an incentive to go with Michael to the outside toilet and encourage, rather than distract, him in his task.
• Both children also get "after nap numnums," though if Nikki acts up during naptime she forfeits her treat.
• If Nikki and Michael wake up around the same time from their nap, they each want their numnum first. If it's an odd day, the child born on an odd day goes first. Even days yield the opposite result. This has led to Nikki paying close attention to our calendar.
• Neither of my older children have any numnums either before breakfast or after dinner.

Nikki is heading toward her fourth year, and I am starting to explore alternatives to nursing in order to get her down to one breastfeeding session per day. Suggestions that might be attractive to Nikki but not Michael would be very welcome, as I don't believe he's ready to wean yet. For instance, I'm not particularly interested in cow's milk as a straight-up substitute, since I don't want to give Michael the wrong impression.

I walked in the house to find a mini breastfeeding support group on the sofa. While I took photos, Michael and Nikki discussed positioning and checked with each other whether their babies were happy.

After attending church last night for carols and ice pops (?!! yes it is warm here), we took off this morning driving northeast out of Perth, just for a change of pace. This picture was taken during a roadside pit stop after Vi had a quick numnum. Michael was so happy to hold his little sister.

From one thing to another to another to another... being a mother is a very busy job. A lot of what I do involves responding to requests. "Mama, can I have a numnum please?"

"Mama, can you open the bathroom door for me please?"
Add in nappy changes, food prep, cleanup, and demand-feeding Vi, and it all adds up. Nikki is limited to a maximum of three opportunities to breastfeed per day: after breakfast, after lunch, and after nap. Since I'm not often able to give her a numnum immediately after meals or naps, Nikki has been concerned I will forget her numnum and has started asking many many times. Michael started asking just as many times. And they both got more and more desperate, dissolving into tears on a regular basis, often in less than the time it takes to wash the rice cereal off their bibs after breakfast. I discouraged whinging by asking Nikki to sit on a stool quietly. But as soon as she was released from her quiet contemplation, there she was asking again. Quietly. Politely. With a please. But still asking! And then Michael asking too. Time to try another tactic. I told Nikki that she could ask for a numnum one time. If she asked a second time, there would be no more numnums that day. It took a couple of days to figure out what asking one time and only one time means. For instance, it does not mean asking, being told your request has been heard and then responding "I'm only going to ask one more time." Now that the "asking one time" rule is clear, life is much more peaceful. Nikki asks once for each of her three numnums and accepts that she needs to wait until I have a good chance to nurse her. Michael only asks when he needs a topup (two or three times a day, plus any extra for bumps or overtiredness). Vi is pretty laid back yet makes the most of her opportunities by nursing very efficiently. Triplex breastfeeding is back to being doable again. Related post: Best Breastfeeding Health News of 2009 - by Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;
toddlers shout the songs that drown out enemy talk, and silence atheist babble.
~Psalm 8:2 The Message~ During our Thanksgiving meal, we asked Nikki and Michael to name some things for which they are thankful. Nikki:      "my heart hat"
Michael:  "splash"
Nikki:      "playing at the beach in the water"
Michael:  "mash" Baba answered for Vi: "turkey-flavoured numnums!"

My lovely friend Megan from Little Daily Escape gave me the Honest Scrap Award which entitles you, dear readers, to a list of ten true things about me. As I have written it, the list has sort of become a random jumble of things that are on my mind, but I am sure you will find some facts hidden in there as well. 1) My colleague Andy was a new believer back when we worked together. I so enjoyed working with him. Today his 18-month-old daughter Iona is going in for open heart surgery. Please pray for her right now and throughout the day as you think of this precious red-head! 2) There are many personality tests available, but the one I have found most memorable was one I took as part of a class in Cambridge. The test revealed that people with my unusual (and, frankly, unhelpful!) personality type love to receive invitations and dislike accepting them. Our professor collected the test results and had the class brainstorm possible jobs for people with each personality type. When he read mine out (anonymously), there was a surprised silence in the auditorium. Then a classmate quipped, "the Queen!" Sadly, the ideal role for my personality is already filled. 3) A good thing, then, that I'm outside the job market - at least until something suitable in a monarchy opens up. Just in case, I keep up with my colleagues and classmates via LinkedIn. 4) I dream of one day writing a book that is worth reading. 5) I've been breastfeeding every day for the past 1167 days. I know it's not for everyone (I would never have dreamed that this would be me!) but I credit the forced breaks and breastfeeding hormones with helping me be a kinder, gentler mama than I would otherwise be. I believe God led me down this path because he knew I needed all the help I could get! 6) For a while I told people that my middle name was "Marshmallow". Thankfully my parents aren't as silly as I am. 7) I recently sold almost all my Ella's House cloth nappies and am using the funds for some Sandman night nappies for Nikki and Michael. Nikki rarely wets her pants during the day, but her bed is wet almost every night. I would much rather wash diapers than sheets! And I would like to get Michael in cloth at night, too. 8) I decided to sell the cloth nappies now, during this moving time, because moving and cloth don't go together well. Also, with two in diapers, I prefer the convenience of disposables during the day. I am debating now between AIO (all in one) cloth nappies or prefolds for Michael and Vi, because I do want to use cloth, but I need something simpler than the assembly that went with my Ella's House nappies. Any thoughts?? 9) Craigslist is big in the US, but Gumtree rules the roost here in Oz. I have been searching for a Like a Bike for Nikki, and I was thrilled when I found one for sale on Gumtree today. It's brand new, an unwanted prize, and I'm getting a great discount. Hurrah! 10) I feel very blessed to have a precious handful of true friends, and Megan, you are certainly one of them! Thanks for nominating me for this award.

Nikki takes good care of her baby.

 

Midwife Vanessa discharged Vi and me from the Community Midwifery Program today. I'll miss her visits. One month old today, Vi has gained half a kilo in the last two weeks! Also, my body is recovering its pre-pregnancy state more quickly than it did with the previous pregnancies. Could it be because I'm nursing three children? In addition to weight transfer, the other miracle rocking my world is this: Nikki and Michael are on a consistent nap schedule. Both of them sleep for an hour and a half each afternoon. If he needs it, Michael will take a morning nap as well. They both continue to sleep well at night. I caught this picture today of Vi taking the floor during a sibling conference. Time to put my feet up and just enjoy Vi each afternoon is an unexpected blessing. I notice I'm singing a lot more during the day, which is a good sign that, despite being well outnumbered, I'm still feeling pretty blissful.

--- 1 --- It's been runny noses and nearly constant numnums here this week. This is the second time my children have been ill (I'm defining ill as including fever and cough in addition to nasal congestion, not just an isolated day or two of runny noses). The first illness was a 24-hour stomach bug. This one is turning into a week-long snot saga. --- 2 --- Here's how we're handling the superlative snot levels. If Baba has time when he gets the kids dressed in the morning, he suctions their noses and applies unmedicated saline nose drops. I repeat this process 2-5 times throughout the day, and Baba does it again after the kids have their bath. Since the drops we use are not medicated, we can use them as often as they are needed. Through trial and error, we have developed a step-by-step snot-clearing procedure:

1.  1 :: Gather nasal aspirator, muslin, and nose drops within easy reach.
2.  2 :: Locate congested child and lay gently across lap.
3.  3 :: With child on your lap, gently restrain your child's hands to keep them away from his face.
4.  4 :: Squeeze ball of nasal aspirator to extract all air, making sure to keep the aspirator away from the child's face.
5.  5 :: Place empty nasal aspirator up into the child's nose, and release your pressure on the bell of the aspirator. You should hear a goopy sucking sound.
6.  6 :: If secretions are thick, you may need to gently move the aspirator from side-to-side within the nostril in order to begin the suction process.
7.  7 :: Once the aspirator ball is completely re-inflated, remove it from the nostril.
8.  8 :: Empty contents of aspirator onto waiting muslin.
9.  9 :: You may need to wipe the child's nose with the muslin before continuing.
10. 10 :: Repeat steps 4-9 until you have removed as much mucus as possible.
11. 11 :: Carefully drop 2-4 drops of non-medicated saline nasal solution into each of the child's nostrils. To avoid getting drops into their eyes and ears as they wiggle, you may wish to place a folded muslin gently over the top half of their face. Ask the child's permission before covering their eyes!

--- 3 --- Nikki is down to 2-3 numnums per day (after breakfast, after lunch, and after nap if she takes one). Michael continues to nurse on demand. With a tickly throat and general level of miserableness, there has been a huge amount of demand! Fortunately, I am able to read a lot and even type one-handed while I nurse. --- 4 --- We gave Michael medicine for the first time this week. He coughed periodically throughout the night on Tuesday, and several times woke himself up. Wednesday night we gave him 10ml of over-the-counter Tixylix cough syrup. He still had several rounds of coughing, but never once woke until the morning. Same again Thursday night. Nikki shares Michael's room, and his coughing has not disturbed her sleep. --- 5 --- Both Nikki and Michael coughed a bit during the day on Thursday, so I gave each of them a half dose (5ml) of Tixylix at noon. Not only did the medicine cause their coughing to abate, they both were much more like their normal selves the rest of the day. I was especially grateful for the significant reduction in whining! --- 6 --- I think we're approaching full recovery. Neither child has had a fever since Tuesday. The snot we've been pulling out of their noses has changed from a dark angry yellow to a much healthier pale yellow, and Nikki's is mostly clear. They are both staying well hydrated, with water and numnums, and getting extra rest. All but one of Michael's daytime sleeps have been on top of me, and he's been having numnums during the majority of those. Nikki has been taking two naps per day. She even fell asleep standing up leaning over the sofa yesterday morning - and she slept like that for over 40 minutes! --- 7 --- I referred earlier to how kind Nikki and Michael have been to each other in the midst of their suffering. Seeing and hearing their interactions with Baby, a doll who has been sick, too, apparently, has reconfirmed in my mind that the greatest benefit coming out of this very difficult week has been an increase in empathy.

Since my latest tandem nursing update, I have had some feedback from mums who are in the second half of their pregnancies and nursing children less than two years old at the same time. I think it is wonderful that we can be geographically far apart, yet experiencing similar things together. We're all in the same boat - except this is the second time around for me. I'll offer what little wisdom I have. Where I don't have personal experience, I'll point you to one of my favorite resources for breastfeeding mamas.
photo credit: Kirsten First, I think you have to make a decision about how long you want to nurse your older child. Whatever your response: 'I'll just try it for another week' or 'until she is two' or 'I can't stand it any longer and I'm feeling really resentful of his requests,' it's important to know how you feel about continued nursing. If your toddler's requests are making you angry, it is time to stop. No amount of breastfeeding benefits will overcome the negatives associated with a resentful parent. And don't feel bad if you fall into this category, either. Tandem nursing is a unique challenge and it causes even the most committed lactivist to rethink her nursing ideals and what she can handle. Ready to wean? The best I can do is point you to Kellymom's comprehensive breastfeeding website and her weaning page for lots of information. In my opinion, once you are in the second half of your pregnancy, continuing to nurse the older child is actually the easier option. Gentle weaning often involves offering lots of substitutes, both nutritional and distractional. All of these substitutes must be offered not only when you feel slow and tired during the second half of pregnancy, but especially when you are spending a huge portion of your time attending to a newborn who just wants to nurse, sleep, and be carried around. A few of the benefits I have seen from tandem nursing: -- Tandem nursing meant a great deal to Nikki when Michael came along. She still got to sit on mama's lap and have numnums. Nursing has always been very important to her and I think she would have resented her little brother if he had gotten to nurse whenever he wanted and she had already been weaned. -- Tandem nursing was a huge blessing to me as well. Emotionally, it meant that in the midst of all of Baba's (wonderful, much-needed) entertainment, there was something special that Nikki and I shared which meant my 'big girl' still needed me. Yet it was something I could easily provide since nursing was pretty much all I was doing anyway. -- On a more practical level, Nikki enthusiastically and quickly dealt with any engorgement. That and the fact that I had been nursing continuously for 17 months prior to Michael's birth meant that breastfeeding him was a cakewalk compared to the excruciating pain I dealt with during Nikki's first few weeks of breastfeeding. -- Tandem nursing made my life in those early weeks easier in other ways as well. Nikki's interest in the numnums meant that if a meal wasn't on the table right away, she could wait a bit. When I have a newborn, schedules go out the window, and I think that Nikki was able to go with the flow more readily since she was demand feeding alongside her brother. Want to tandem nurse your toddler and newborn? The babymoon is always a bit of a blur for me, but here are my best tips. (1) Set low expectations in all other areas. My expectations during the babymoon, or first six weeks of the newborn's life, are to (a) breastfeed, and (b) lie in bed as much as possible in order to rest and let my perineum heal. My husband's expectations are to have as much time off as he can following the birth and to take care of the essentials (meals, dishes, laundry, diapers, and toddler entertainment) during the babymoon. My toddler's expectations, which we set for her, are that the new baby will sleep a lot, nurse a lot, and cry a lot. During this time I gradually start doing more things and my husband gradually less until we reach our new equilibrium as a newly expanded family. (2) Prior to the new baby's arrival, strategize how you might set your toddler's expectations on frequency/length of nursing. I thought this wouldn't be an issue for us since Nikki wasn't nursing a huge amount in the weeks leading up to Michael's arrival. I had never set any limits on her nursing, and in my idealistic child-led-weaning mind I never planned to. However, once that new baby milk came in, I was faced with a toddler who would have gladly traded in her three meals a day for an endless supply of numnums. Seriously, she hardly ate solid food for the first week at least. I was nursing pretty constantly those first few weeks of Michael's life, and I had no resentment toward Nikki - like I did much later on - but I did sometimes need to cut one of Nikki's feeds short in order to attend to Michael. And sometimes I just wanted to read a chapter in a book without nursing anyone. -- an easy way to shorten a feed for a toddler is to say either before they begin or while they are in the midst that they can nurse until the count of 10 or 20. After I count out loud to the number I've mentioned, I break the latch with my pinkie. I don't use this very often, but I haven't received any protest when I do use it. -- standing up, especially accompanied by looking very busy, is usually an effective way to avoid being asked for numnums by your toddler. But this can be tiring! -- when I was lying down in the bedroom, Nikki could come in and have numnums by invitation only. This was where Baba's toddler entertainment meant the world to all of us. -- you can try other things, such as telling your toddler they can only have numnums at certain times (like after breakfast and after lunch for Nikki), or only a specified number of times a day (in conjunction with a sticker chart or similar). I would recommend that you wait for limiting number of feeds until after your toddler is back on solid foods following the 'can't get enough colostrum.' Otherwise, you may encounter some very emotional resistance to your reasonable suggestions. -- in addition to nursing, I had some fun new board books saved for after Michael's birth to read aloud to my toddler. Michael also brought a gift for her when he arrived to help keep her entertained. I also sang quite a lot, which was sometimes all she needed. (3) Try nursing your toddler and newborn together. In addition to being time efficient, this is also a great way to stave off jealousy. Both children are getting exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. Not often as a parent that you can do that for two children with such different abilities and energy levels. My hormones started giving me fits after months of simultaneous feeding, but I didn't have any problem with it initially. I remember that my biggest wish was to figure out a comfortable way to lie flat in bed while nursing both children simultaneously with them propped on pillows. Maybe this time around I'll actually succeed in that quest! Related posts: week 24: tandem nursing update - 27 April 2009
a year of tandem nursing - 20 February 2009
breastfeeding challenges: blocked ducts and milk blisters - 27 August 2008
tandem nursing: first five weeks - 16 March 2008
Michael's birth story (with a picture of my first tandem nursing session) - 11 February 2008
breastfeeding: an encouraging word - 24 October 2007