Cedric is 16 months old – a big baby who is really toddler – and he’s still nursing. I didn’t quite expect to find us here. I nursed Dashiell until he was just shy of 15 months and we were ready to be done; he was a wild kicking animal somehow managing a downward dog pose while still nursing. 

My general goals with breastfeeding Cedric were to first to breastfeed and pump until he was a year old (we also supplemented with formula), then to nurse until he was about 15 months – the same as Dashiell – and then if we were still breastfeeding after that just to see how it goes. We’ve reached the “see how it goes” phase and I’m both ready and not ready to be done. 

A few days will pass without nursing at all and a couple of times I’ve thought that we were done for good. But then the weekend comes, when Cedric is around me all day, or Cedric is a bit emotional on a weekday morning and he’ll look at me and start to sign “milk” fervently with both hands and say, “nuck,” which I take to mean the very appropriate combination of “‘nack” for snack and “nurse.”

On the weekends Cedric will sometimes nurse many times and clearly it’s very much for comfort, turning to me whenever he’s upset. I gather up my big baby in my arms and hold him close and rumple his fine hair. He will stop and look up to me with a knowing smile and tap his mouth, reminding me of our rule: no biting.

For a time continuing to nurse felt like too much demand, inconvenience and trying to make a non-nursing bra work and I thought about picking a day to nurse one last time and be done. But more recently Cedric is asking less to nurse and I’m enjoying the cuddles with my baby boy. So for now I’m okay continuing and knowing that the end is surely in sight.

With Dashiell it was so clear that it was time to be done but with Cedric I’m feeling like I might have to make the decision and it feels like a hard one to make, to end this babyish phase and a particular way that we connect. And so I’m 96% sure we’ll be done sometime this year but we’ll “see how it goes.”