Breastfeeding a toddler can present unique challenges that are a bit different than feeding a newborn or infant. As a Certified Breastfeeding Counselor, you support parents throughout the breastfeeding journey which includes breastfeeding toddlers.

Whether the toddler is just over one year old, or a 3-year-old, breastfeeding continues to offer essential nutrition, emotional, and developmental benefits. Breastfeeding toddlers might be common in your area, or it may be less common. Either way, you should have the tools to support parents of breastfeeding toddlers.

Understanding the Benefits of Breastfeeding a Toddler

Breastfeeding toddlers is extremely common in some places and almost unheard of or ostracized in other places. Parents who choose to breastfeed beyond infancy in some places may face skepticism and misunderstandings. When you provide them with evidence-based information about benefits, you can help them navigate things they are told by others.

These benefits include:

• Continued Nutrition: Breast milk adapts to a toddler’s changing nutritional needs, providing essential vitamins, immune-boosting components, and healthy fats.
• Emotional Security: Breastfeeding can serve as a source of comfort and connection during times of distress, illness, or developmental transitions.
• Immune Protection: As toddlers become more mobile and exposed to germs, breast milk continues to provide protective antibodies that boost their immune system.

By emphasizing these benefits, you can help parents feel confident in their decision to continue breastfeeding. You also equip them to navigate questions and comments from friends and family who may not understand.

Help Parents With Managing Expectations and Challenges

Breastfeeding a toddler can be demanding, particularly as the child becomes more active and assertive. Toddlers, in general, can be demanding and a bit difficult. Breastfeeding, like other areas of their day, can be influenced by this.

Common challenges parents face include:

• Frequent Night Feeding: Some toddlers nurse frequently at night for comfort. Help parents set boundaries that support healthy sleep routines without weaning prematurely, if that’s not their goal.
• Public Perception: Parents may feel judged or uncomfortable nursing in public. Offering tips on handling criticism, or finding private spaces to nurse, can provide reassurance.
• Balancing Nursing and Solid Foods: Toddlers require a more balanced diet as they grow. Counsel parents on maintaining a healthy balance between breastfeeding and solid food, ensuring their child gets the right nutrients from both.

Encouraging parents to anticipate and prepare for these challenges can make the day a little easier for both parents and toddler.

Setting Boundaries with Nursing Toddlers

As toddlers develop their independence, they may demand breastfeeding more frequently, sometimes as a means of asserting control or seeking comfort. You can guide parents in establishing boundaries, such as:

• Scheduled Nursing: Some parents find success in transitioning to set nursing times, like in the morning, before naps, or at bedtime.
• “Don’t Offer, Don’t Refuse” Approach: This technique allows the toddler to gradually reduce feedings at their own pace, while respecting the parent’s boundaries.
• Alternative Comfort Strategies: Suggest alternative comfort methods, such as cuddling, offering a cup of water, or reading a favorite story, which can help when parents want to gently reduce breastfeeding sessions.

Discussing boundary-setting helps parents feel empowered and in control of their breastfeeding journey. Remind parents that just as they have other boundaries with their toddler, it is perfectly reasonable to have boundaries related to breastfeeding. Boundaries can also help a parent continue breastfeeding as they are less likely to be burned out from a lack of boundaries.

Weaning Can Be a Gradual Process

Some parents may be considering weaning but aren’t sure how to approach it with a toddler who is emotionally attached to breastfeeding. Gradual weaning is often the most gentle and effective method. Some tips for parents include:

• Replace Nursing Sessions with Other Activities: Encourage parents to introduce other bonding rituals like playing together, taking walks, or having a special snack.
• Shorten Nursing Sessions: Suggest that parents gradually shorten the duration of each breastfeeding session as a step toward weaning.
• Stay Attuned to the Toddler’s Needs: Toddlers may experience separation anxiety or emotional upsets during weaning. Counsel parents to move at a pace that feels right for both, offering support when setbacks occur.

For toddlers, it can be new to find alternative ways to connect with their breastfeeding parent. As breastfeeding parents, we tend to always offer the breast as it’s an easy source of comfort almost always guaranteed to work. As we near weaning, it is helpful to assist toddlers in finding other positive associations for bonding with the breastfeeding parent long before full weaning.

Don’t Forget Emotional Support for the Breastfeeding Parent

Breastfeeding a toddler can be physically and emotionally exhausting. Breastfeeding parents may feel pressure to stop nursing or feel conflicted about their own desire to continue. As counselors, offering empathy, listening, and validating their feelings is key.

When a parent asks how long they should breastfeed, an excellent response is, “It’s your body. However long you’d like.” Remind them that there is no right or wrong time to wean. The right time is when it is no longer mutually desired by both the breastfeeding parent and the child.