When Pumping Ends

My son is going to be 2 in late April and I'm still pumping 1x at work during my lunch break. He nurses quite often when I'm at home with him, though the sessions are generally not that long any more. He drinks some of the milk that I pump when my mom watches him in our house on Fridays. The rest I end up freezing or dumping. He goes to daycare three days per week where he has cow's milk.
Anyhow, my HR director asked me to let her know when I was done pumping. I sort of want to keep pumping as long as I can partly because it's the only way I can have an office to myself.:)
Does it make sense to pump past 2 years? The main reason that I'm doing it (other than the office) is that I feel like I'd get really engorged during the day if I didn't and my milk supply would go down. Did I mention that ds is a very picky eater?
Thanks for any experience or advice you'd like to share.

Hannah

While I think its wonderful for you to provide your 2 year old breast milk and continued nursing, I believe that the last research my doctor mentioned (as my 10 month old is still nursing and I have plans to continue until she is a year old) is that there is a statistical difference found in children who are breastfed until they are 3 months, it drops 15% in children that are then breast fed until they are 6 months and then after that they cannot show that receiving breast milk offers any statistical difference to the child (i don't recall the all they were testing-sorry).  Once they are a year old they should receive whole milk until age 2 for the fat and cholesterol that is needed for brain development. At 2 you can start offering 2% or less.

In kind of sounds like at this point you might be doing it more for yourself, than your child?  There are ways to wean yourself so that you will not be engorged. I am working on that now myself.  It sucks you might lose your office space, but...think of the free time you will have to play and cuddle and so forth.  I hope it all works out for you.

Jaci

Abby's mommy

Hi Hannah,

Nice to see an update from you. Does it make sense? It's up to you IMHO.  If you're going to be engorged, sure it makes sense.  If the EBM is still being used and not wasted, sure.  If you don't want to stop yet, then continue to do so.  I pumped almost until Afram was 1.5yrs.  I remember my officemate, asking me one day, how long it's normal to do it and how long I was going to do it.  It was normal to me, it was well integrated into my daily schedule, so I was fine with still doing it once per day.

Do you feel pressured (real or unreal) by your HR director? If you do wean, remember to still take a break for yourself during the day. 

Caryn

Nursed Nia for 12 mos, W&P'd for Olivia until 13-14 mos and nursed Afram until 3 years after W&Ping for 16-17 mos.

Thanks, Jaci and Caryn.

It's hard having no role models around to ask these questions but at least there are boards such as this one to find advice. I mean, there have been quite a few nursing moms at my company, but none who've worked in the same building as me for the 7 years I've been here.

The HR director is pressuring me to stop pumping, in an indirect way. I mean, when she came into my office, she said "I don't want to pressure you..." but the fact that she was asking was a sign that she was! I'm guessing that the other nursing moms at my company must have stopped pumping around 12-18 months.

This weekend my ds wnated to nurse much more often than usual--like once an hour or more! I think he's either teething or going through a growth spurt. I expected to be really engorged today but I really wasn't. I only got about .5 oz more milk than usual, too (usually I only get about 2 oz, today it was 2.5).

The important thing is that I can still continue to nurse ds even if I stop pumping. I'll see how I feel after his 2nd birthday, which is coming up in about 1 month.