The beautiful photo celebrating two years breastfeeding twins.

By Lauren – Gold Coast Mum.

When my twins were born, I was determined to breastfeed.

Both girls had tongue ties and were feeding CONSTANTLY.

I persevered through shredded nipples, latch issues, supply concerns (that I actually shouldn’t have worried about at all as the girls were piling on the weight), mastitis, suspected silent reflux, colic and more.

I was amazed, pleased, and proud to have reached each little milestone I set along the way.

So here we are, 2 years later, and guess what?! They’re kind of still boobin!

I never set out to be an ‘extended breastfeeder’ or a ‘natural term breastfeeder’. It just kind of happened.

My first two children weaned at around 15/16 months as, both times, I was around 3 months pregnant (with #2 and then with #3&4). So I didn’t have to tackle the whole weaning issue.

I have shared various details about my breastfeeding experiences here and elsewhere within the blog.

In the past few months I have been ready to wean.

The girls have been on one feed a day (at night, before bed) for many months.

So around the time of the girls’ 2nd birthday, I met with a lovely Gold Coast mum I came to know via Instagram DH Photography and she captured some beautiful breastfeeding photos to celebrate the journey I have experienced with my twin girls.

Around the time these photos were taken, the girls were having one feed before we’d put them to bed.

After their 2nd birthday hubby and I started changing up the routine a bit, so the girls would ‘forget’ about their feed.
It worked.

For a couple of days, the girls forgot/ were distracted and didn’t miss having their tandem feed before bed time. And, to be honest, I enjoyed having my body back as I was getting to the stage where I was kind of ‘over’ them having that one feed most days.

There have been a handful of times since, where the girls have both been wanting a feed but I’ve distracted them and they’ve happily forgotten.

They went a week without a boob feed and then both demanded a feed at the same time where I caved in and let them for a minute before saying ‘ok, all finished’.

The girls are now 2 years and 1 month.

They lasted a week without a feed until last night when Victoria awoke – super unusually – after midnight and it was the only thing that would calm her down.

I’m super proud to have reached all of my breastfeeding goals – first it was 1 week, 6 weeks, 12 weeks. Then 6 months, 10 months, 12 months, 18 months.

And then as we approached their 2nd birthday I thought, oh, what the heck. So I started following a ‘don’t offer, don’t refuse’ rule of thumb.

Which worked well.

I feel very lucky that the girls have been able to wean gently, and happily, at their own pace.

The gradual drop in feeds has meant I’ve had no discomfort at all and everything’s just phasing out in a natural way.

I am proud that I was able to provide comfort and nourishment for so long and the many benefits breastmilk provides (just like broccoli, breastmilk doesn’t suddenly lose its nutrition once a baby reaches a certain age).

I am now ready for this chapter to come to an end and am so glad that I had photos taken to capture the beauty of our breastfeeding journey (coz, let’s face it, while the photos of me sitting around in a maternity bra and singlet, wearing yoga pants are a natural and accurate reflection of how I spent a lot of my time, it’s nice to have the moments captured in a special way as well).

This post originally appeared on the Gold Coast Mum blog.

What do you think about extended breastfeeding.