How old is too old to breastfeed?

[mrspoisson]

I won't share how old my child is (still classed as toddler) but just wondering when it becomes wrong to keep breastfeeding?

It's starting to feel gross now, but it sometimes works as a great comforter for DD when getting to sleep, when sick or upset. Doesn't have it to replace food though. Eats 3 meals a day plus snacks.

What age would you say could potentially cause psychological damage/hinder development?

@MsEllany because bOoBies aRe sEXuaL, yeah?
🙄
They are for some people.
I stopped because i wanted my body back,and for my boobs to be sexual again.There is nothing wrong with that.

@IAteAlltheAvocadoPears

My son had 2 teeth by 4 months old. Som babies are born with teeth. What then?

@Shmithecat2 inappropriate doesn’t always mean sexual. But y’know, you draw whatever conclusions you like from what I posted.

It is a biological norm, not the biological norm

It is neither a biological or a social norm. It is very, very extended breastfeeding. Which doesn’t make it wrong. Or not possible, but it is not “a” norm, either biologically or socially. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

I think you’re aware of this, because you immediately corrected your language and moved I from “biological norm to feed school aged children “ to a biological norm to feed children of starting school age”.

Two very different things, school age children covers a wide span. Starting school age is four or five.

And the definition of the norm is “ standard or typical” and it is not. Breastfeeding tails off as children age, and only a tiny percentage of children attending school in developed countries like the Uk are still breastfed.

I'm still curious because nobody's given me an answer. What damage will it do to a child to be breastfed until they no longer feel the need to do so? How would you pick out the breastfeding 5 year old from his peers? Would you expect to see a difference between him and someone who hadn't been breastfed past infancy later on, at 10, 15, 25? What sort of differences would they be?

@MsEllany, so, define inappropriate with regard to breastfeeding a preschooler then.

I'd say to wean after they hit 3 max tbh. If they can talk and are at nursery/ school it's weird.

Of course. That's just me - do what you want.

@VirginiaWolverine

Absolutely no damage whatsoever.

@Pipandmum

Child number one had to be weaned at five months as going back to work. Child number two self weaned on the night before her first birthday. I always thought a baby getting teeth was mother nature's way of saying stop!

One of mine had four teeth by three months, far, far too young to stop!

DS2 fed until he was 3 and a half years. It was completely his choice to stop. Feeds had tapered down slowly until he just wanted a quick bedtime feed, then one night he just didn't want it and that was it. All done. He remembers the cuddles, but not the feeding as such. Hes a perfectly happy, very confident six year old now.

Babies and children go through ups and downs with feeding where sometimes they'll want it more than other times, even going through short periods of refusal (nursing strikes), but if it is available in a "don't offer, don't refuse" way, it is rare for a child to self wean before three.

This article might be helpful...
www.laleche.org.uk/breastfeeding-beyond-infancy/#:~:text=Historically%2C%20until%20relatively%20recently%2C%20%E2%80%9C,and%204%20years%20of%20age.

@VirginiaWolverine kids know it’s not the norm, so the child being breastfed in the playground will be seen as different to their peers, they could get laughed at, picked on and shunned. That’s pretty damaging I’d say.

@Brieminewine I can imagine anyone who is breastfeeding a school age child is doing it at bedtime or when at home.

I think some people whose only experience of breastfeeding is for a newborn don't realise how little most people feed older toddlers/ children. I'm coming to an end of breastfeeding now- my son is 3 and he probably has one 5 minute feed at bedtime and that's it. He doesn't ask for it any other time and now it isn't even every night- I'm guessing he'll stop completely in the next month or so.

Have any of those people talking about 'extended'/natural term/self-weaning bf being 'for the mother's benefit' ever tried to force a child to feed that doesn't want to?

I'm also curious as to what those people calling bf a 2/3/4yo/school-aged child 'weird' (the use of which does rather make them sound as if they haven't yet left school themselves, but that's by the by) find 'weird' about it exactly. Would one of them care to specify?

God knows :shrug: I was going to stop at 6 months...then 12 months and now I have a 2yo, he only bf at night but im so so done...however I am also lazy and it works so well to get him back to sleep when he wakes 🤣🤣🤣

@CatteStreet

I'm also curious as to what those people calling bf a 2/3/4yo/school-aged child 'weird' (the use of which does rather make them sound as if they haven't yet left school themselves, but that's by the by) find 'weird' about it exactly. Would one of them care to specify?

Wow people get so wound up when defending extended feeding 😂

I find it ‘weird’ to treat a child like a baby.

Not wound up in the slightest, just noting the rather juvenile use of language.

So breastfeeding, in your view, is something only 'babies' do. What's the definition of 'baby'? Where's the cut-off? And what other things that babies do do you think need to stop at that age so a 'child isn't treated like a baby'?

And again, 'weird' in what way?

Weird as in, strange, differing to the norm.

Once a toddler is weaned and eating well, you wouldn’t continue to give formula so why continue to give breast? That would be the cut off for me.

For me, if a child can walk over and ask for a BF then they're too old.

So I'd say anything up to 1 for me.

@Brieminewine because it’s about comfort, closeness and most of all (for me) ease! It’s a quick fix to a cut knee, getting back to sleep or having a break from pretending to be a crocodile for the past hour. I have no issues with a 2,3,4 yr old having a bottle at night as part of the bedtime routine as my eldest did.

OK. My perspective, as someone who has bf three children to 4.5, 3 and 3.5 years respectively, is that, when you are in that naturally evolving relationship, there is nothing strange about it. (It may differ from the norm in most of the developed world, but there is a difference between something differing from the norm and it being strange). I also think formula is a fallacious comparison because it really is only a foodstuff. Bf is a relationship (one, partial, possible aspect of a mother-child relationship).

When they actually don't 'need' it.

But they don't need it ever. You can formula feed. We do lots of things with children which aren't strictly necessary but they are nice, or useful, or it's just working for us so why change that.

I would stop giving formula at 1 year because it's more expensive than cow's milk and requires being made up with boiling water. Breastmilk, on the other hand, is free and I don't even have to pour it in a cup, so it would be more inconvenient to switch. Also cow's milk doesn't have the same instant calming/sleepy/regulating effect, whereas giving a bottle is generally the same whether it's cow's milk or formula milk inside, so why wouldn't you switch to full fat milk?

Someone breastfeeding a 5 year old in the middle of a school playground for no reason other than to broadcast their breastfeeding status probably is being a bit inappropriate, yes, but this is a straw man argument because 5 year olds who breastfeed probably do it in the privacy of their own homes at bedtime. Their peers don't know about it any more than they would know which brand of milk their parents buy - it's not something five year olds tend to discuss.

@MoonBaby1 I understand what you’re saying, but to me, your points are still more relevant to when they’re babies than preschoolers.

For example, I agree breastfeeding is a huge source of comfort for a baby but a 2/3/4yr old is able to reassured in other ways. Also I think it’s not ideal to link comfort with feeding with older children. Your other point about doing it to get a rest from imaginative play suggests that feeding is more for your benefit

I am all for women doing what they want with their own bodies, I was simply answering the question if I thought extended feeding was ‘weird’ and I do.

@Shmithecat2 you can read my other posts where the one child I know who was breast fed till school age was picked on for her entire school life if you like?

I breastfed my own child till nearly two. I stopped because I wanted my body back. I think it’s weird (as in differing from the norm like @Brieminewine says) to breastfeed much longer than that, when a child is fully weaned and there is plentiful food to feed said child. Comfort when there’s other methods available....well, I wanted my body back. A cuddle does just as well tbh.

This is just my opinion, it’s not a wild, out there, offensive opinion. Lots of people feel similarly. I don’t care what people do with their own bodies and their own children particularly, but I can have an opinion on it.