Wow! I never thought that K would actu­ally be a 3 year old. I also never thought that he would be a breast­feed­ing 3 year old. When he was born, my ini­tial goal was 6 weeks. Then, I thought 3 months would be doable. After that, I decided to fol­low his cues.

K has always been a child who needed a lot of phys­i­cal con­tact. He likes to be held. He likes to hold hands. He likes to climb into my lap and play. For him, I think that nurs­ing has been more about phys­i­cal con­tact and recon­nect­ing than the milk. Of course, he likes the milk. When I recently went on a week­end trip, I left frozen milk pri­mar­ily for A, but I think that K drank as much as A did. Some peo­ple crave Coca-Cola. Some peo­ple like milk or water or beer. K LOVES a glass of “mommy milk.” In fact, the first time I gave him a cup of pumped milk, he stood in the kitchen and chugged it. When he was done, there was milk run­ning down his face. Jason and I were laugh­ing so hard. Now, if I’m going to be gone at bed­time, he’s on the look­out for a glass of milk.

I have got­ten some looks and some unsup­port­ive com­ments about my choice to 1) nurse K for almost 3 years and 2) do that while tan­dem nurs­ing A (15 months). If I’m hon­est, I think that it makes me sad more than any­thing else that peo­ple think that there’s some­thing weird, wrong, or odd about our choices. I don’t think that every­one should or can nurse for 3+ years or tan­dem nurse. I just wish that peo­ple would real­ize that it’s an option and it’s not as crazy as it sounds.