Tandem breastfeeding is of two or more children of different ages by the same woman, usually their mother. Amazingly, breastfeeding just one child for any length of time can be discouraged even by health professionals, so tandem feeding is not something such women might discuss openly with many people. Oddly enough, it is generally more socially acceptable in Western countries to feed older children with milk intended for baby calves rather than the Milk of Human Kindness!
How does tandem feeding come about?
Sometimes emergency or babysitting situations result in women breastfeeding their own child along with another woman’s. Close friends and relatives may agree to breastfeed each other’s children when babysitting. Since the emergence of serious viral diseases such as HIV, there has been the need for mutual assurance that these mothers are healthy and free of such infections – therein lies the advantage of knowing each other very well!
Otherwise, tandem breastfeeding comes about when a mother becomes pregnant and continues breastfeeding her older child through the pregnancy and after the new baby’s birth. Occasionally, mothers of twins or two older children close in age tandem feed three children, including the new baby – or a mother with new twins may tandem feed one older child. Mothers often comment that there is less sibling rivalry among these tandem feeding siblings.
Special circumstances are another reason for some women’s decisions to breastfeed longer than they might otherwise have done, including while pregnant. It may be that a breastfed child develops a major illness, is disabled, suffers an accident, needs hospital admission or endures some great trauma. The comfort of the breast under these conditions can greatly ease a child’s distress.
Mothers often add that it is also comforting for themselves to breastfeed in such situations, especially when there is not much else they can do. Breastfeeding in the midst of mayhem and unfamiliar environments can be an island of peace and reassurance for an upset mother and child – something “normal” when not much else is!
“Is it safe to breastfeed when I’m pregnant?” is a question that arises if a mother conceives while breastfeeding an older child who is still reliant on the breast.
For poorly fed families on bare subsistence diets in some parts of the world, it is a tragedy for a breastfed child if his mother gets pregnant too soon for him to be able to do well without her milk. Kwashiorkor is the protein deficiency disease that disadvantages these children because the mothers’ malnourished bodies can’t sustain both pregnancy and lactation at the same time. “Kwashiorkor” is a Bantu word tragically meaning, “the evil eye of the child in the womb upon the one already born”. The older child will battle to survive.
Well fed Western mothers can readily breastfeed through a pregnancy and onwards into tandem feeding both older child/ren and new infant if they so choose, without harm to any of them. It is not surprising that breastfeeding two or three children simultaneously is OK when we know that mothers can breastfeed triplets, quadruplets and quintuplets. And over a century ago, European wet nurses regularly fed up to 4 or 5 babies at once!
However, in the 21st Century, there are still persisting fears that pregnant breastfeeding women may go into early labour because of oxytocin release triggered by breastfeeding. Oxytocin forces milk out of secretory cells in the breast, making milk available to the baby. Oxytocin also contracts the uterus.
Oxytocin is produced in huge amounts by labouring and birthing women. Without oxytocin, labour would not be possible. Oxytocin is a short-lived contractive hormone released in short “bursts” by the pituitary gland, the small master gland of the body, situated just under the brain. Directed by the brain, oxytocin releases are also absolutely crucial to human sexuality. Without oxytocin there would be no blissful sexual experiences, no orgasm, no male ejaculation.
Sometimes women who anticipated breastfeeding throughout the next pregnancy find that the older child weans anyway, well before the new baby’s birth.
It may be that the older child loses interest in continuing to breastfeed because of:
- a change in flavour of the milk due to the hormonal changes of pregnancy
- less abundant milk volumes associated with these changes
- a developmental readiness to wean
Oxytocin circulates rapidly around the whole body via the blood, is metabolised and gone within a minute or so. The difference between how much is released for breastfeeding compared with labouring and sexuality is substantial. Just one surge of oxytocin is enough to force a lot of milk out of the secretory cells of the breast for the baby. A breastfeed consists of a series of oxytocin releases, with the baby resting briefly between each one. By contrast, we are flooded with oxytocin in many large multiple “bursts” for orgasm, labour and birth.
This explains why, if there is any serious concern about premature labour because a pregnant woman is breastfeeding, she would also expect to be advised of the even greater risks posed by having sex!
“How do I prepare my older child for sharing my breasts with the new baby?”
Mothers who tandem feed usually don’t have problems with the older child sharing the breast with the new baby, but some forward planning is always better than suddenly thrusting an unprepared child into a new situation.
Even if the older child is not yet talking, he can be expected to understand quite a lot of words, so both parents can talk to him about “our baby” who will need lots of breastfeeds. Books can be read to him about what having a new baby in the house will be like. “Our baby” or even “your baby” helps give him a sense of shared “ownership” of his new sibling. Imaginative play with dolls and teddies about the care of the new baby, including breastfeeding, helps create a picture for him of what he can expect after the baby is born. This needs to include discussion about where the baby will be born, where the older child will be and who will look after him while mummy is having the baby. It is helpful if all of these things happen on many occasions, so he feels as familiar as possible with everything that is planned.
“Will my new baby still get colostrum if I’m tandem feeding?”
Most women anticipate birthing in hospital, which generally means that the older child will visit his mother rather than stay with her and the new baby. Colostrum appears as normal after the birth, and the newborn has more frequent access to the breast than the older visiting child. One benefit of having an older breastfed child when the milk “comes in” is that the mother is unlikely to suffer any unpleasant breast engorgement!
Another way of ensuring the newborn’s colostrum intake is for the new baby to be fed first, before the older child. But most mothers don’t find there is much need to enforce such feeding arrangements, and often have one child on each breast, feeding at the same time. In one case, a mother didn’t notice that her new baby had a suck problem till he was about 3 months old, because the older child usually breastfed along with his baby brother, stimulating the milk flow for both of them!
Whether tandem feeding just “evolves” or is planned by mothers, it is a personal arrangement between mothers and their children. It does not warrant other people’s negative opinions any more than most other parenting decisions do.
“How long should I breastfeed?” is a common question. It helps if the following points are made in response to this question:
- The average weaning age around our planet is 2½ – 7 years. It has not changed in millennia, so can be regarded as the evolutionary norm for our species.
- Breastfeeding is a central part of the communication and bonding that goes on between mother and child. Inextricably, breastfeeding is the natural foundation stone for this primary relationship.
- As such, breastfeeding is not a competition which the longest feeding duos “win”.
- For mothers who breastfeed older children, it is not about reaching some long-term target, and more about continuing to breastfeed for as long as it feels right and is in accord with their child’s needs.
- If there is concern about a lengthy breastfeeding relationship, a basic question is, “Is the child being harmed by it?” It is difficult to make a serious case for long-term breastfeeding to be harmful for a child – even when a mother may seem to have her own psychological agenda, leaving her open to suspicions of over-reliance on this relationship to fulfill her own needs. Such misgivings about the mother’s motives are most likely to be cultural value judgments before they are anything else.
- Breastfeeding cannot continue unless the child wishes it to!
- Breastfeeding is a cooperative arrangement between mother and child. It is not something that a mother can “inflict” on her child, though amazingly, some women have told me they’ve been accused of this by health professionals and others.
Unless the child is at risk of physical harm from a psychotic mother, mothers ought to be entrusted with deciding how long their children breastfeed. Fathers are the only ones entitled to have any opinion about the length of the breastfeeding relationship, other than the “primary stakeholders” – mother and child. Even then, it is undesirable for fathers to feel they have a right to dictate the terms of this liaison.
The ancient traditions of both Jewish and Islamic lore are that fathers provide all the material support needed for the mothers of their children to breastfeed for the first two years. Overall, it is the sacred masculine role of fathers to protect and support this breastfeeding relationship from various judgments that uninvolved outsiders seem to feel compelled to make.
The quality of non-verbal communication developed by mothers with their children is unique, with mothers knowing before anyone else if there is anything wrong with their children. A mother is uniquely in the best position to know if her child is ready to wean. Long-term and tandem breastfeeding are normal parts of mothering in traditional communities. Only in Western countries are they seen as peculiar in any way, worth any comment at all.