Nursing

I nursed Isaac until he was nearly three years old. We stopped six months ago when he was 34 months old and I was 12 weeks pregnant.

I got pregnant with Laurel when Isaac was 31 months old, at which point he was nursing twice a day for about 15 minutes total. When he was 33 months old we began nursing just once a day, and over the course of that month I gradually reduced the time spent breast-feeding from six or seven minutes a day to just one minute. Then we stopped completely. It was good timing for both of us. While some women breast-feed throughout pregnancy, I had begun to feel like I was going to jump out of my skin -- clearly my body was telling me it only wanted to support one child at a time. Isaac was a little sad the first few times I cut him off after just one minute of nursing, but strangely when I told him we weren't going to nurse at all anymore, he didn't ask for it. He accepted that we were done; he just didn't need it anymore.

I thought of this a few days ago, when I was nursing Laurel and reading to Isaac. As we sat on the couch together he watched her nurse for a few moments, then asked, "Is the baby chewing on your nipple?"

"No," I said in surprise. "She's sucking. That's how she gets the milk out. Don't you remember?"

"No," he said.

He claims that he doesn't remember nursing at all (although I can't be completely sure that's true). I don't know if I'm glad, or sad.