Are you thinking about breastfeeding longer than you maybe expected, and worried about what will happen? I was. Long story short, my firstborn had a lot of difficulty breastfeeding for the first few months of her life (low supply, poor latch, nipple shield, food sensitivities, etc.) and I never thought we would be breastfeeding for longer than a few months, if that. But the tables turned and she ended up nursing until she was almost 2. Like 23 months and 2 weeks—almost 2. Call me crazy, it’s ok, I think it’s crazy myself. I didn’t plan or expect this to happen at all, and I really often worried and wondered…will she ever stop nursing? Is this a bad habit or dependency? Am I just being weak? Am I becoming a “hippy” or the “attachment parenting” type? What will happen when we do wean? Ah!

But like so many of the things I’ve over-analyzed about parenting, this experience eventually became something I was grateful for and didn’t regret at all. In fact, I am now nursing my 11 month-old-son and not planning to intentionally wean him anytime soon. (Of course he gets to decide if he wants to self-wean but I won’t encourage it yet.) To celebrate World Breastfeeding Week, I thought it was worth sharing more about this in case I can help others to stop over-analyzing and just keep going if they want to and can.

Before I go on…please know I absolutely don’t judge anyone for their personal breastfeeding choices. I wholeheartedly believe it’s best to do what works well for your baby and your family, whether that includes breastfeeding at all or not. With that said, here are a few of the top reasons why breastfeeding beyond 12 months did work so well for me and my family:

Immunity support: It wasn’t that my daughter didn’t get sick ever, because she did, in fact, pretty often through the cold/flu seasons. But she was exposed to germs A LOT as she went to a neighborhood preschool 2x/weekly and to our YMCA and church childcare really frequently. As a normal one-year-old who put EVERYTHING in her mouth, she caught several colds and viruses. What was so remarkable then that I didn’t notice until later? None of the colds/illnesses turned into an infection until the very end of our time breastfeeding. And then she had 3 more ear infections right in a row after she completely stopped breastfeeding. Coincidence maybe, but a notable difference for sure.

Teething and calming: Have you ever witnessed the drama of a teething, overtired, cranky 1 year old? If you have, you know what I mean. It’s not exactly the stubbornness of terrible twos or the independence of “threenager” threes, but it’s the uniquely LOUD and relentless crankiness of the teething and non-verbal one year old that I’m talking about. Maybe it was just my kiddo, but seriously, I often felt like breastfeeding was like a magic superpower to help calm my overtired, teething, toddler when absolutely nothing else worked. It was definitely a superpower I felt that I needed and appreciated!

Money saving: Breastfeeding is free! And even the breastpump I used is now free through my insurance company. (Let me know if you need help with this – happy to tell you how it worked for me to get one!) I’m sure I’m not the only one who finds baby food expensive, and even though I was nursing, my 1 year old still ate 3 full meals of food each day. Not having to buy milk for her on top of that was a BIG savings for our grocery budget.

In hindsight, it’s clear that I worried and fretted about the weaning process and timeframe more than I needed to. Classic first-time-Mom move, I know. Eventually, I slowly weaned her pretty uneventfully between 20-24 months and she never put up a fight or asked for it again. While there were downsides to the whole experience of course (like anything that requires you to give from your body!), the upsides were far greater than I could’ve expected even in the crazy toddler days. Here’s to round two, with my son, and to not worrying about it all so much this second time around.

What was breastfeeding like for you? Did you struggle with the timeframe or end up nursing longer or shorter than you planned?