Another breastfeeding door shuts

Wistful. Melancholy. Proud. Satisfied.

Toby is done breastfeeding. I once wondered how long he’d wake every night (19 months). I once joked that he’d breastfeed the night before kindergarten. He was my first to take a full feeding at the breast (and promptly sleep in the most epic milk coma I’ve witnessed) in NICU and my most consistent and efficient breastfeeding buddy.

Eleanor is still hanging on, breastfeeding one or two times a week. When she asked to nurse yesterday, Toby did, too.

It’s been three weeks, give or take, since he’d last asked. I hadn’t given up on him since Callista took a one-month break before her last nursing session. I thought we had another unscheduled date (and we still might, as Callista’s last time was during illness – she’d lost her latch skills but remembered when she was desperate). I don’t remember my last breastfeeding moment with Toby.

He tried to latch yesterday. He couldn’t figure out how. He whimpered and was frustrated and sad, tried a few more times then gave up.

“Please have snack?”

I readjusted us all (Eleanor had finished, so he didn’t need to try tandem nursing) and asked if he wanted to try again.

“No. Please have snack?”

And that was that.

(Toby stopped breastfeeding between 32 and 33 months of age and somewhere between 30 and 31 months actually breastfeeding, time adjusted due to prematurity.)