Breastfeeding the Second Time Around

Welcome Carnival of Breastfeeding visitors!!
Over at Blacktating (link removed as blog has since been taken down), I discovered that this month's "Carnival of Breastfeeding" is about subsequent nursing experiences. Which, coincidentally, I've been thinking about lately. Nursing Bauer has been essentially the same as nursing Emberly and yet different.
There were additional challenges having a preschooler to care for simultaneously (she's inevitably hungry or into something as soon as I would sit down to nurse), but the actual nursing is/was a breeze, thankfully. I also started sending him to daycare and going out a bit sans baby much sooner than I did with my daughter so pumping was a slightly more prominent pain in my butt (so excited to not have to do it on his daycare day after a mere 6 more weeks! I really feel for the breastfeeding mamas that work full time away from their babies!).
The nursing acrobatics and hair pulling and pinching and pushing phases are the same. Occasional soreness and engorgement, the same.
But, Bauer is much less attached to nursing. He rarely falls asleep nursing yet that was the only way Emberly would go to sleep 98% of the time. Nursing was the cure-all for anything and everything that bothered Emberly. Bauer is just as satisfied with being held and rocked usually. And Bauer has been very interested in solids since we started offering them in his 7th month, where as Emberly nursed every 2hrs hours well after 1 and wasn't too into food until she had several teeth. Bauer has slept for 12hr stretches at night without nursing several times and sleeps 6+hrs regularly. His sister held on to nursing even after my milk dried up while I was pregnant with him for a few weeks before relenting and weaning herself just before she turned 3. I predict that Bauer will wean himself between 18 and 24mo.
While I loved the nursing relationship when Emberly was little, I frequently would burn out and look forward to weaning. Something would always change (either my perspective or her habits) just when I would think maybe I wouldn't make it. I feel a little guilty admitting it, but I cherish and appreciate Bauer as a nursling more because he is so much less needy about it. I melt when he falls asleep nursing. I love laying in bed nursing in the early morning hours with him. I'm getting a little teary-eyed now just thinking about him all growed-up. Everything happens too fast, with every baby.

More Carnival Participants:
Elita @ Blacktating: Second Time's The Charm {removed, blog taken down}
Tanya @ the motherwear blog: http://breastfeeding.blog.motherwear.com/2011/06/-reasons-why-its-usually-easier-the-second-time-around.html

Takisha@ Reporter2Mother: http://reporter2mother.blogspot.com/2011/06/lessons-learned.html

Sarah @ Good Enough Mummy: http://goodenoughmummy.typepad.com/good_enough_mum/2011/06/carnival-of-breastfeeding-the-second-time-around.html

Barbara @ Three Girl Pile Up: http://threegirlpileup.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/totally-different-and-completely-the-same/

Sbelle @ Treasured Belle: http://treasuredbelle.blogspot.com/2011/06/tandem-nursing.html

Christine @ Christine's Contemplations: http://christinescontemplations.blogspot.com/2011/05/carnival-of-breastfeeding-nursing.html

Zoie @ Touchstonez: http://touchstonez.com/2011/06/13/once-more-with-feeling/

Anne @ Dou-la-la: http://dou-la-la.blogspot.com/2011/06/once-more-with-feeling-contemplating.html