20: Breastfeeding A Sick Toddler (Why, How & What to do when they're well again)

Immune system support is something we think about when we're talking about breastfeeding newborns, but did you know that the immune support in your breastmilk increases when your child reaches toddlerhood?

You might think that breastfeeding your toddler is a helpful way to comfort them when they are sick, but the reality is that even a few drops of your breastmilk is providing sooo much more than comfort.

In this week's episode, I share with you:
-Some mindblowing reasons why you may want to breastfeed your toddler through their next illness
-Practical ways to make breastfeeding a sick toddler easier (including some of my tried & true mom-hacks)
-How to navigate moving back into a routine once your little one is well again.

Don't forget to sign up for my free workshop on toddler breastfeeding, weaning & tandem feeding at www.ownyourparentingstory.com/workshop. 

Grab your free guide to say "No" to the feed while still saying "yes" to the need at  www.ownyourparentingstory.com/guide

Love this episode?!  Shoot me a DM over on Instagram @own.your.parenting.story and tell me all about it. <3

Transcript

Breastfeeding your sick toddler. So this is obviously a topic that has been near and dear to my heart as anyone who has been following this podcast knows that we've been having a lot of sickness in our house. And if you follow me on Instagram and you're listening to this podcast, the week it's out, you'll know that we just had a stomach bug go through our house as well.

And when I shared on. My Instagram stories that we were kind of all knocked out with the stomach bug. I had a lot of you reply to that story and say that you were going through some sicknesses too, and I felt like it was a really great time to share with you some support to breastfeed your. Toddler while they're sick.

So like practical support, but also some of the science behind breastfeeding your sick toddler. So before I get into things, I just wanna say that this is not medical advice and anything I say in this podcast is only for educational purposes. And of course that goes for any content that you get from me on this podcast in my emails or on my social media accounts.

 So now that we have that outta the way, I wanna share one other thing. In this podcast, I'm gonna be talking about short-term illnesses. Generally, you know, viral infections, perhaps bacterial infections. But if you are breastfeeding a toddler with a chronic condition or a more serious illness or hospitalization, a lot of this is still gonna apply to you.

 There are only a very, very, very small number of instances where breastfeeding is truly contraindicated for a sick child. So when a child has a certain type of sickness where breastfeeding cannot occur with that sickness, honestly, it's incredibly rare for that to be the case. That being said, there are some instances where that is the case.

So if you've been told by a medical professional professional that you need to Wean your sick child or that breastfeeding, you kind of left a conversation with a medical professional feeling like breastfeeding was really unnecessary or perhaps just too difficult while your child's sick and you would like to continue breastfeeding.

So if you've heard that from a medical professional, but you'd like to continue breastfeeding, I just wanna remind you that you have every right to ask to speak to either A, an I B C L C that the hospital could provide or call an I B C L C yourself. So an I B C L C is an international board certified lactation consultant.

And that's really the gold standard. There are, you know, lactation counselors like myself and other people who can absolutely provide you with information. But if you're in that instance where you're talking with a medical professional, you may want to ask if the hospital has a, an I B C L C that you can speak with, and then you just add a lactation specialist into your childcare team.

Because a lot of times the medical professionals, they're simply just not educated on that. Particular, you know, area breastfeeding, right? And they're gonna err on that side of caution, or they just don't understand. The benefits and why it's important to you to breastfeed. And so adding in somebody into your care team can just protect that and, and in many ways support you and your child on their road to recovery, right?

And through your relationship. So I will, this is not medical advice. I'll be talking about short-term illnesses, but this still applies to chronic illnesses and hospitalizations and more serious illnesses. And so I hope that if you are in that position or you ever are in that position, First of all, all of my thoughts and prayers to you, mama, that's very hard.

 And I also hope that you can get some, some good insight and support out of this. So let's dig right into it. There's gonna be kind of three big areas that I'm gonna talk about, which is why should you continue to breastfeed your sick child? I'm gonna move into some practical support, and then I'm also gonna talk about what to do when your child is now.

Well again, and moving through that, okay, we've been breastfeeding maybe more frequently and now we've got to scale back. What does that look like? So I'm gonna talk about why you might wanna breastfeed your sick child, some practical support to breastfeed your sick child, and then what to do when your child is better.

So let's get started. The very first kind of obvious reason that you would wanna breastfeed your sick toddler would be hydration, right? It's what we think of, right? Breast milk, it's, it's a fluid it's a drink. So breast milk is actually a clear liquid. I'm using quotations with my fingers right now as I say that.

So a clear, with clear liquid means that you can safely Give your child breast milk before any surgeries where the restriction is clear, liquids only, and it also counts as clear liquids when your doctor might suggest giving your child clear liquids when they have you know, or electrolyte drinks or those kinds of things when they have a stomach bug or something that could cause dehydration.

So if your doctor, or if you normally, generally speaking, you have a, your child has an ailment to where hydration would be a concern, then breast milk is. Absolutely. Your best bet at offering your child hydration, they do not need water or an electrolyte beverage. If they have like full and continued access to breast milk all the time.

Now, if you have created, if you're breastfeeding like an older toddler, maybe like a three or four or five year old and they eat a lot of other foods and you're not breastfeeding, Super frequently anymore, then consider breast milk like a beautiful addition to water and electro beverages. But it's, you can continue to give them breast milk and it will continue to count as an electrolyte beverage for however much breast milk they are getting.

So, hydration, wonderful. But there is so, so, so much more that breast milk offers your child when they're sick. It actually takes around six years for your child's immune system to mature. So some report, like some studies I see say of between two to seven years in there. But normally like your child immune system is still maturing up until that six year mark.

So nature has provided. Really beautiful, easy access, immune support for your child to fill in the gaps for their maturing immune system through your breast milk. And one of the really cool components of breast milk is lysozyme, which is an anti-bacterial antiviral, antiinflammatory, antifungal enzyme that actually increases in concentration after six months.

 Of breastfeeding and then again at 12 months, and then some studies show that it even increases again at two years. So that concentration is just increasing of this really superpower enzyme that is inside your breast milk. It's almost as if nature knows that your toddler is going to be in instances where they're probably going to need that extra immune boost, right?

They're gonna be putting things in them. In their mouths, they're gonna be interacting with other kids and in situations where they're likely to be encountering pathogens. Right. And so yeah, it's just, it's a beautiful component of breast milk that is continuing to increase over time.

So it's even more protective at two years than it was at when they were a newborn. Your body is also producing, producing tailored antibodies to support your child even before, like whatever's in the environment around you and your child, your body is adapting the breast milk that they're getting to.

 Support them in kind of fending off whatever pathogens are in your environment. That, that drive that you have to kiss your little sweet kiddo on the cheeks, right? That is actually picking up pathogens off of their skin. So if they've been apart from you, that's one of the ways that your body is picking up.

That little bits of information and knowing how to tailor that milk to meet their needs. And your body was doing this before your child was even showing symptoms, so pretty cool. Right? Another thing that breast milk does. Can help restore a healthy gut microbiome during an infection as well as after and after even antibiotics.

So all the oligosaccharides are present in breast milk, so they are a type of sugar that your. Child's body doesn't actually break down, so it kind of passes through their body. But what it's feeding is healthy bacteria in your child's gut. So your child also has lact, deferent or your breast milk, or also has lactoferrin in all these different things in, in it itself, but it also has things that are just in it to feed the healthy bacteria in your child's gut to help that flourish and grow.

Again, that's really important for future immune support as well as present immune support. As well, concentrations of fat and protein actually increase in breast milk as your baby moves into toddler years. So we know that they're starting to increase around 12 months and continue to increase. We know that even in the second year of life.

Your breast milk will meet about 43% of your child's protein requirements. Okay? So if they're not eating anything else, your child's still getting fat and protein and carbs and all of those things simply through your breast milk. And in that second year of life about 60% of your child's vitamin C requirements will be met through breast milk and 95% of their vitamin B12 requirements.

And so, so many more. Your breast milk is. Teaming with those macronutrients as well as those micronutrients, right? We're talking yeah. All of the minerals and vitamins that your child needs to stay healthy, right? To fight off this virus or bacteria as well as stay healthy. And lastly, well, not really.

Lastly, there's so much more I could go into, but last for what I'll share right now is hormonal support. So, Your breast milk has oxytocin in it, which is the love hormone, the bonding hormone. So not only do they get oxytocin from just snuggling with you, but they're gonna get that added boost from your breast milk itself and that oxytocin can.

Provide really pain relieving comfort, right? And another hormone that's in your breast milk is melatonin, which is the sleepy hormone. It's gonna support your child to sleep more peacefully, even when they're feeling ill. And for you to be able to get a little bit more sleep at night. And that melatonin does increase in the evenings, right?

So, It will support your child to be restful when you want to be restful. Right? If that makes sense. Okay. So that is just some of the amazing reasons why you might want to consider breastfeeding your sick toddler. So let's talk about how you can breastfeed your sick toddler. So when your toddler is sick, if they have something that is causing pain in their throat or you know, in their ears or their mouth, it might be difficult for them to breastfeed.

It's probably gonna be difficult for them to eat anything or drink anything. Which may also include breastfeeding, right? So you may find that a little bit of over the counter pain relief can be supportive. This is particularly important to consider if dehydration is an issue. Like if your child is really struggling to get things down, you might wanna consider some over-the-counter pain relief, like, Ibuprofen, acetaminophen.

 You can even look at things like rn. That might be something you wanna talk to your doctor or your pharmacist about, but that's really important. Another thing is if your child's struggling to breathe when they are breastfeeding, like cuz because of congestion, you might wanna use some steam. You could also use a saline mist in your child's nostrils.

Another one that is really good is It's called Clear, it's like clear nasal spray with an X and it's got xylitol in it. And the xylitol actually helps to remove bacteria and allergens and things from your child's sinuses as well. So it's like saline with xylitol added into it. So that's something that you could look at.

If they've got that nasal congestion, a lot of times they'll still continue to breastfeed through the nasal congestion. They'll just be kind of popping on and off a lot, which, if you have some nursing aversion, it can be quite irritating. So you might want to try breastfeeding in the bathroom with like hot shower running or a humidifier running or something like that.

 Just allow your child to breathe and so that they can have kind of a longer space of breastfeeding for a little bit to get what they need without kind of that. Popping on and off constantly. That can be a little irritating if you're already struggling with some nursing aversion. So it's also important to remember when it comes to practical support, that by the time your child has displayed symptoms of a viral infection, for example, it's very likely that you've already been exposed to it yourself.

So what can happen is that moms start to say, oh my goodness, I don't wanna catch this, so I need to stop breastfeeding. But the reality is, you've. Likely your child has likely already been contagious for a few days beforehand. Now, depending on what particular ailment that your child is diagnosed with, you can check the c d c website or whatever.

 To see what they suggest is often the period that they're contagious for. But generally speaking, they're contagious before they even exhibit symptoms. In most cases. For things like hand, foot, and mouth you know, that kind of stuff for respiratory infections, common cold, all of that. So That means that any efforts you make to not get sick like don't make them too stressful on yourself because the likelihood is you've already been exposed to it.

So don't worry too much about things like pumping to give your child milk in a cup in order to create that separation. First of all, you're losing some of. That snuggles and comfort that your child wants so desperately, and it's, you know, it's likely not even going to be very effective in stopping you from getting contracting whatever your child has in and of itself.

Now, a lot of times it is worthwhile to consider that a lot of childhood illnesses are more difficult for adults to catch, or adults get them. Slightly less symptomatic, like their, their symptoms aren't as intense. De again, it depends on the particular virus that we're talking about. But you know, it, it's, it's very possible that even with being in close contact with your child, you won't contract it.

Right? That's an absolute possibility. Now if you're anything like me, you're probably gonna contract it cause it seems like I do all the time. But that's just me. So anyways, don't worry about pumping and giving your child milk in a cup because you're probably already exposed to it. Another thing is, a lot of times moms will want to wash their breasts or wash their nipples after a feed, but in nearly all cases, this is not.

Needed, in fact, can actually cause more harm because you have these little glands around your areola called Montgomery glands or Montgomery cubicles that secrete oils that are antimicrobial. So the oils themselves are moisturizing. They create some lubrication, they help keep the tissue healthy, and they're also fighting pathogens on the skin.

To help keep everything healthy and clean so you don't need to wash it. And in fact, when you wash it, you're washing away those oils and can leave your skin dry, which dry cracked skin is more likely to be infected, right? That's where pathogens can actually enter into your bloodstream and into your body.

So, Xna on the pumping and feeding in a cup. You don't have to worry about washing your breasts and if you're tandem feeding. So if you have a toddler and a newborn, you also don't need to worry about washing your breasts in between. Giving like milk to one child and the other, again, they've probably already been exposed to it.

If they're around each other at all, it's very likely that that's happened. You've already been producing antibodies to this infection before your child was even exhibiting symptoms. And also your body's already protecting your breasts themselves from, you know, Having that infection kind of live on the skin, right, with that oil.

 That being said, of course there are. Probably instances where that might be necessary to wash your breasts. Of course talk with your doctor, talk with a pharmacist if they're perhaps getting some kind of medication where it might, or, or maybe they have creams on their face or different things where you wouldn't want that on your skin or to be touching a baby.

You know, those are all instances that are kind of unique situations you'd wanna talk to your doctor about. But again, in general you don't need to worry about that. You also don't need to worry about using like a nipple shield in order to stop contact or anything like that. Those are things I see people talking about or asking about, and you don't need to worry about those things to inhibit the transfer of germs.

Now let's talk about taking care of yourself. So your breast milk, if you listened to my episode on you know, upping and decreasing your milk supply when you're extended breastfeeding, you'll know that. Illness alone isn't likely to cause your supply to dip, but not eating or drinking enough can absolutely cause your supply to dip.

So you need to take care of yourself. Mama through this time, prioritize. Listening to your body, which I know can be really, really hard. And I talk about that in my free workshop. So if you are interested at all in this kind of piece, make sure that you have gone to www.ownyourparentingstory.com/workshop  and how to listen to my free workshop.

 But it's really important to tune into your own needs and to listen to your hunger and fullness cues and to. Like drink when you are thirsty. As soon as you're thirsty and drink until you're not thirsty anymore. You do not need to force a whole bunch of extra fluids on yourself above and beyond what you're thirsty for.

 Just meet your needs, take care of yourself through this process. As well. You don't need to worry about galagos, which are things that are, are, you know, herbal supplements or whatever to increase your supply. A lot of, in a lot of cases, those things are actually not evidence-based at all. We don't have any signs to suggest that they actually do anything to cre increase your supply.

Sometimes there's just a lack of evidence, like we just don't have a lot of research on it. But in this case we're talking about a short-term illness, so taking extra things right now, you just don't worry about it, don't stress about it, they're not likely to really be very helpful. And it's not, it's just not something you need to worry about.

So don't, don't worry about doing anything special to increase your supply. During this time. Now I wanna put a little caveat here if your little one has a stomach bug. So if you guys are going your stomach bug. This is my real mom life in the trenches, tips and tricks. This is my hack for you. After, you know, six years of parenting and having had many a vomiting child in my bed with me, this is my advice, get some disposable bedwetting like pads.

So there's like disposable bedwetting pads for toddlers. Don't use the pet ones because. They're not meant for children. And so it's possible that there's like chemicals and different things in there that just aren't meant for children. Get the ones that are meant for kids and line your bed with those, line their bed with those.

Okay. They're very easy to change. In the middle of the night, you just pull it off and lay a new one down. Normally there's little sticky pads on the bottom so you can kind of put those in the spots that you need and it's gonna make things a lot easier. And then my other suggestion is to get some small kitchen garbage bags, like plastic kitchen garbage bags, and some disposable diapers.

Toss the disposable diaper in the garbage bag and then stick that garbage bag over a bowl for any vomiting. It's gonna absorb the liquid. You can tie a. Not, and throw it away. You can also align potties for more loose stools will absorb the liquid and you can toss it away. You don't have to be touching anything.

You don't have to be disinfecting anything. It's just really quick and easy. Side note, you can then take those lined bags or, or keep the bags and some disposable diapers around to line a potty for when you're in the car when you're traveling. That way you don't have to be worrying about like, rinsing out pee in a, in a potty or anything like that.

 It helps so, so much, especially if you get sick too. It just keeps everything really easy. You're not worrying about having to clean up messes. Okay. That is my you know, tried and true mama advice to you. So we've gone over why you might wanna breastfeed and we talked about. The immunological factors the macronutrients, the micronutrients, the hormonal support, all of those things that are your breast milk is full of, that's going to support your child to feel better sooner as well as just feel better throughout the process.

Right. Then we talked about practical support, so helping your child to breastfeed even when they're sick. As well as keeping yourself well and sane during, during the sickness and during the process. So now we're gonna talk about kind of the recovering from the illness and how you can kind of transition in your breastfeeding from.

Where you are when you're not sick to being sick, and then back to not being sick anymore. So one of the things that you can think, be worried about or thinking about is supply and demand, right? Your, your milk supply during this process. So if you already are breastfeeding your child freely throughout the day and night, And your child gets sick, just continue to do so.

Your supply is gonna just naturally match your child's demand, and it's going in, in both increasing and decreasing, and you won't have to pay any conscious attention to it or do anything else. It's just going to take care of itself. So this is often the case with, you know, one-year-olds or two-year-olds.

They're breastfeeding a ton anyway, and it's just normal. That's great. Keep at it. Do what you're doing. Don't worry about it. Now if even if you have a child that age or a little bit older, but you've created some routine and structure, or just naturally you have some rhythm and routine and structure around your breastfeeding, so either intentionally or just naturally, it's your choice whether or not you wanna breastfeed outside of that normal routine.

So, All of the beautiful things about breast milk are still gonna be there and still be relevant even if your child's only getting a teeny tiny bit of that breast milk or breastfeeding. Very infrequently. In fact, like I was talking about with some of those immunological factors and whatnot, the in the concentration of those things not only increases over time, but increases as you Wean.

So the less milk you're producing, the higher the concentration is for some of those immunological factors, which means. Hey, if, even if your child's getting a tablespoon of that breast milk in a day, that is a big boost to their immune system, an important boost to their immune system. So it's still valid.

It's still worthwhile. That being said, if you would like to allow your child to breastfeed more during the time that they're sick, you are more than welcome to do so. Your breasts will never actually empty. So it might feel like there's nothing left in there, but your breasts are always producing milk.

It's not like a factory where they're like hit their quota and they're like, we're done for the day. The breast milk is always being produced and it's just pretty produced on different kind of timelines or different, like different rates. So it's always going to be being produced and while the demand is increasing, so when there's your child is breastfeeding more and more at the breasts, suckling more and more they will be getting milk.

But as that demand increases, the production rate is going to increase. So they're gonna be producing more. Not necessarily, again, not like a quota that they're filling for the day, not an amount in a day, but at a cer specific rate, right? And again, that rate, it's always happening. It's never at zero unless you fully dried up.

Which again, if you're listening to this podcast, that's not the case. You can go back to my milk supply episode and hear about what, what drying up is actually requires, right? So all of that, even if your child's just getting a little bit, it's still really important. So your supply may temporarily increase.

So if your child is breastfeeding more frequently for three or five days or so, then you might notice like a, a noticeable change in your milk supply and. Again, your child's probably going to naturally taper off and you won't even notice. So your, the, the supply's gonna kind of naturally increase with your child's demand and then naturally decrease as your child's demand decreases.

Right? And it will not be a big notice, but if you, for example, Take two days off of work your child's breastfeeding or two or three days and your child's breastfeeding very frequently, and then you go back to work. You may experience a little more fullness than you're used to. If you're experiencing it to a point where it's uncomfortable, then please by all means hand express for some comfort.

You can just do not worry about collecting that milk unless you would like to. You absolutely can, but it's perfectly okay to hand express into a sink or even a toilet just to get some comfort for your breasts. And again, as that demand decreases, your supply will regulate again. To what what your child's demand is, right?

So you don't have to worry about pumping or worry about like permanently increasing your supply. So, What can, what you can often worry about is, well, I went like, I, I've had this structure and this routine, and perhaps you even worked really hard to get that structure and that routine, and it can feel like we're going backwards, right?

Like we're, we're going backwards in the weaning process. But I want to reassure you, mama, that that is not true. Breastfeeding is meeting a need, right? You aren't going backwards because it's not a habit. Okay. If breastfeeding was a habit that needed to be broken, then yeah, you could say, oh no, we're, we're kind of back going backwards on our progress.

But that's not true. It's not a habit, it's not an addiction. You are meeting your child's needs so you can meet your child's needs with breastfeeding if you would like to. Right? When your child is sick, there's needs that need to be met, right? They need that immune support. They need that comfort. They need all of those things so you can meet them in other ways.

And nature biology, your own biology has given you this really beautiful, simple way to meet so many needs in one shot that requires not a ton of, you know, physical effort or mental effort from you to, to give your child, right. So, You can offer them breast milk and breastfeeding as a way to meet those needs.

And it's okay if you wanna meet those needs in other ways too. That is okay. So your child's needs have increased while they're sick, so that means that their desire and their frequency of asking to feed is probably also going to increase, right? And as their needs decrease, their frequency of asking and all of those things are going to decrease as well.

So, If that all sounds really scary to you, maybe your child's not actually sick right now, but you're listening and you're like, Jenna, there's no way that I can do that. I want to maybe, maybe kind of, that sounds like a good idea, but I'm so scared to offer my child more breast milk than than we are right now, because I'm scared that we're gonna move backwards.

If that's you, then first of all, please shoot me a dm. Let's chat. But that fear and that stress inside of you is. Important to listen to. And it's giving you clues to what's happening in your internal world. And it's giving you clues to what's happening in your relationship with your breastfeeding. And I already kind of plugged it once, but I talk about this in my workshop.

 How to tandem feed toddler ween and extended breastfeed without feeling like a human fidget toy or hurting your bond with your child or pushing your child away. And in that workshop I really dig into. Listening to that discomfort and listening to that voice and why that's so important and what, how you can use that in order to create a breastfeeding relationship and a weaning relationship that sets you up for parenting success in the long term.

So in the present and in the long term. So if that resonates with you, please go over and check that workshop out. I really encourage you to do so, or shoot me and or shoot me a DM on Instagram. I'd love to chat about it. Okay, so that wraps up my episode on breastfeeding your sick toddler. Yeah. I will catch you all next week.