I still breastfeed my 5 year-old

[TandemFeeder]

I’ve had another baby too so am now a tandem feeder. Happy to answer any questions.

Has anyone mentioned "Bitty" yet?

Do you not worry that feeding a 5 year old and a baby at the same time is going to emotionally impact your older one?

Sorry but if i could remember my mum breastfeeding me alongside my sibling, I would be repulsed and creeped out.

Yawn. Yes.

Is it more common in third world countries where access to healthy food (or any food) is more difficult? I honestly can't see the point in bf 6 year olds in a developed first world country or in families that have access to nutritious, good quality food.

My children haven’t been bullied but I was and it was horrific. The school were useless and I saw them be useless towards other children. So I do get what people are saying. But for me, if I had had one friend, one person who stood by me then it wouldn’t have been so bad. But I wouldn’t change, they picked on me for being different and the things that make me different are still there, I wouldn’t and won’t change for them.

I can’t stop other people bullying, but I want to raise my kids so that when an entire class turns on one kid they don’t join in. They don’t laugh along. They don’t make that one person feel utterly alone. That they understand that people are different and just become someone experiences something different it doesn’t mean they can pick on them. From my own experiences, that is what matters most. And that is what motivates me to feel that way. I’ll always be ‘weird’ and ‘awkward’ so I’ll always defend others getting called ‘weird’ because if we let everyone call those people and those things ‘weird’ and never stand up to it it never changes and I don’t want to have to change to suit other people’s narrowminded nastiness.

People always say it’s really common in other countries but where? Guinea-Bissau has the longest breastfeeding rate in the world and it’s 22 months

Go on, in what places is it common to breastfeed at 6y?

I haven't said .ine won't admit it to their friends or do it in public.

I have no idea if my child has told her friends. She asked to feed in public last Xmas though - it was me that said no because I wasn't dressed suitably! She's not embarrassed, aNd she can find comfort in other ways - she just wants those few mins at night

I get that the milk is nutritional.
My concern is that I can still clearly remember being 4, 5, 6 and I think if I could clearly remember sucking my mum’s breast as part of my daily routine on some level that would affect me as an adult. And that is the issue I have with it.
No issues with giving the 5 yr old a beaker of breast milk.
My neighbour feeds her son at 5 and it’s quite a proprietorial act, he pushes her down and he’s desperate for a drink/ suck/ comfort in the evening and he pulls her shirt to the side himself without waiting for her ok; he is impatient and lies across her. If I’m there she’s a bit helpless so I have to make drinks help with food if she’s cooking.
Out of interest @TandemFeeder Do you teach manners and respect for the breast and female body alongside feeding?

What exactly do you mean by the "longest rate"? Plenty of women all over the world BF longer than that.

Is that an average? Is it reliable data? What's your source, please?

If you were watching a show and the mum was bf her young baby you’d think nothing of it, if she did the same to a 5/6 yr old I think even the ones on here who do it would be 😫 There’s a reason for that.

Well that's literally impossible data if we have known cases of 4, 5 and 6 year old BF in the UK. 22 months can't be the longest BF rate in the world

Link?

See my other post on this. I can’t find a source but I believe the ability to latch is lost as soon as the milk teeth start to fall out, usually around 6 or 7 and rarely beyond 8. It’s something to do with not being able to create the same suction as before. You definitely don’t need to wait for them all to come out.

In what way do you think it would have affected you?

Both my DC remember BFing. They have no shame attached to it, it's a fond memory for them, or so they tell me anyway.

If you think that's icky, you're probably reflecting societal conditioning around breasts being sexualised. But the thing is, if you see them as being for the function nature actually evolved them for - i.e. BFing, then your perception shifts, it doesn't feel icky anymore.

I liked your funny joke, and it made me think a bit more, so thanks for that!

I guess then we're just objecting to the mechanics, are we? Cow milk is made for cow babies (we artificially impregnate cows yearly and removed their babies while tiny so that we can "harvest" the milk instead). Cow milk obviously comes from cow boobs via cow nipples. We just express it on an industrial scale. Nobody finds that objectively weirder than humans breastfeeding little humans? Is it the nipple usage we object to? And if so, why - because (female - not male, obviously) nipples have become so sexualised in western society? They are literally designed by evolution to be part of an amazing milk delivery system, not just for ogling.

So, would expressing milk to feed an older toddler / younger child therefore be considered totally socially acceptable? All very well if so, but I expressed for a while to top up and my god was it an inefficient pain in the arse by comparison to just breastfeeding (I am completely in awe of women who do exclusively express because they are literal superheroes).

This thread has lots of interesting perspectives and I think OP was quite brave to start it, so thanks OP!

This is it, I don’t think anyone is particularly bothered by idea of a child of six drinking breast milk from a cup, I think it’s the idea of them suckling direct from the breast at that age and size.

Despite the denial of many of the more vocal and vehement posters on here, there’s been quite a few posters saying that having those memories has been personally quite damaging for them. Which I can understand.

Again, despite these posters’ claims, no one is suggesting breast feeding is bad or disgusting, but people are, I think, understandably a little perturbed by the image of a large child suckling from the breast. Even the many of us that breastfed.

And the OP is more than aware, because she did an ‘AMA’ thread.

Apologies, yes, an average. Of course there will be people who breastfeed for longer.
and actually after some intense googling I’ve found that in Bangladesh the average is 33 months, so I think there’s no definitive data… so sorry for misleading post! However… I literally cannot find any evidence at all that breastfeeding at 6 is “really common” in lots of places - I would be absolutely astonished if that were the case.

To everyone asking about the teeth thing, I can’t get on La Leche League but they have information about it called ‘Still nursing?’. The child’s mouth shape changes as they age and they can no longer latch as they don’t suck, their mouths form a suction and their tongues force the milk up and out into the mouth. KellyMom (an American resource about feeding) says most children naturally wean themselves between two and four given the choice, which is interesting, but finding the stats about all this is quite hard which may be why there is so much conflicting information about natural weaning.

They can have the milk without breastfeeding...

Yes, there's a reason - societal conditioning. Nothing more or less.

There absolutely nothing wrong with BFing a child of this age - none of the arguments against it stack up.

No nutritional value? Well that's bollocks, it's designed by nature not only to have nutritional value, but it's tailored specifically for your child. If the marketeers could genuinely replicate it, they'd be charging a fortune for it!

Only for the mother's benefit? You try telling that to BF school-age children. 😂 They'll quite clearly tell you you're wrong!

And any variety of objections that basically come down to people mistakenly thinking breasts are primarily for sex. No. Their primary purpose is BFing children. If they're also for sex, that's a bonus.

The UK has one of the lowest BFiing rates in the world. It is because of years of social conditioning that in our society we're conditioned to think allowing DC to BFing to 6 or 7 is somehow wrong. There is nothing objectively wrong with it, and a lot of benefits for both mother and child, including protecting against certain cancers, even.

Are you concerned how this could impact their social experience within school? I have a 7 year old (BF until 3) and I know if they revealed to their school friends they were still breastfeeding that would likely be a point of discussion/ likely ridicule amongst other children of that age?

I would have thought it has to do with the front teeth? Also the top of their mouth may be developing a different shape with all the teeth slowly growing in their gums?

But why would you bother if it’s just for a couple of minutes before bed?

If the average in Bangladesh is nearly 3 years, then that's a culture where it's perfectly normal to BF a toddler, and many are BFing for longer - else that wouldn't be an average.