I'm nursing my 4 month old baby and thinking of continuening until he reaches 2 years and i wanted to know if

i'll be burning more or less calories while my baby gets older? i've read somewhere that a mom burns 200-500 cal per day. but does that number decrease or increase with time?
thanks

Thumbs up for your desire to give your child the best and asking the question...
The answer about the calories depends... It fully depends on how much milk your little one drinks. Usually as they get older and you start introducing solids, they nurse a little less and slowly over time, your milk supply decreases. As your milk supply decreases you will certainly burn fewer calories, however, still more than if you weren't breast feeding.
If you are waffling about whether to breast feed that long or not, please find and read some Dr. Sears books, He is an excellent pediatrician who encourages mothers to breast feed their babies as long as they can. He cites many scientific studies of the benefits for both mom and child and gives exellent examples from his own family and patient's experiences of breast feeding children even as old as 3 years old. What a wonderful comfort it is for a young child to be able to go to their mother and be held and cuddled and given that most comforting breast feeding.

I hope you have an even greater success than I have had with my 2 children(the first I only nursed until 13 months since I was pregnant again), but the second I nursed until after he turned 2. And we have 2 wonderful, secure, healthy children now.

the calories burned will decrease as the child gets older, because he won't be nursing as much as he begins to get nutrients elsewhere in food. The demand will decrease, so your supply will decrease, therefore, the calories burned will also decrease.

first of all I am a nursing mom of an 11 month old that plans to nurse till he is atleast 2 yrs. So, ignore the comments. I get asked all the time when I plan to quit breastfeeding. Less calories as they get older, but it is said breastfeeding mothers do get their figure back quicker then bottlefeeding mothers.

It's going to depend on how frequently you nurse. Some babies are nursed exclusively even beyond the 6 month mark, when solids are permissible, but it's all up to you. As you nurse less frequently, the amount of calories you burn will diminish, but if you contunue to nurse and/or pump (like us workin' mommies have to do) you'll still burn at least 200 from that.

It will decrease with time as the older the baby gets the less frequently the need to nurse will be.As your child starts to eat more solid foods the need to nurse with become less and less.

The calories start to go down as your baby starts to eat solid food. Like around 6 months. But not by much because they are still getting their main suply of nutrition from milk. When they reach 1 year old is when the Dr. will tell you a baby should be getting most of his/her nutrition from food and should only be taking in about 16 oz. of milk per 24 hours. So like 2 8oz. botles, one in morning and one at night. At that point you are not burning too many calories.
Good luck with this plan. Your baby is still young, my son was interested in everything else going on around him once he turned about 7 months and it made making him sit through a breastfeeding session very tough for both of us. I had to wean him at 8 1/2 months.
Are you sure you want to go until 2 years old? That's a kid you'd have hanging of your boob!!!

my personal opinion is that breastfeeding until the 2 year mark is way to old, especially for a boy. when my daughter was 2 she knew a lot more than i thought. they understand things that we thought was way over their heads. you are definitely burning a lot of calories right now breastfeeding and it's very good for you son, but carrying on that long may not be such a good thing.