Extended breastfeeding - how do you feel

[Feedingwondering]

Was in a situation today where I was judged negatively for still breastfeeding my DS, who is 3.5. I wanted to know how common these attitudes are - I’ve never really thought about it because how long we choose to breastfeed for is the business of no one but mum and baby, but it made me wonder what other people think/feel. No judgement on how anyone feels about it, I’m just interested.

Do your 7 year olds not drink milk then?
What age did you stop calf milk?

Not sure this argument holds given I still drink milk for calcium and I'm in my mid thirties. I guzzled milk as a teenager too. I'm sure people WOULD have had a problem with my mum breastfeeding me as a teen. 😅

Still feeding at 3.5, I never imagined I'd go this long. I wanted to get to the WHO recommendation of 2 at least. Mostly for my benefit initially to reduce cancer risk tbh!

I've also heard a lot about 4 years being the earliest weaning probably should be. I remember listening to a Podcast (boobing it, I think) where they looked at similar species and the natural weaning ages, it made a lot of sense.

4y/o is also when children are able to fully produce their own antibodies. So it makes sense for toddlers to continue to feed until then imo.

The UK has a pretty poor breastfeeding culture, I think I remember reading less than 0.1% are still feeding after 2. So I think the public perception of too old is way off.

We only feed for about 10mins a day total, before going up to bed and first thing in the morning.

I don't talk about it anymore. I had a dentist mention the effects on teeth but the latest research doesn't indicate this at all, in fact breastmilk has protective qualities, as long as the latch is correct.

I think as more research is done we will discover more benefits for extended breastfeeding.

@Changeagain3 of course 7 year olds drink milk.

Cows milk is perfectly safe and normal for human consumption.

But by your rhetoric humans should only drink breastmilk? Should I go and ask my mum for some breastmilk now then? Where do you draw the line?

I breastfed my daughter until 2.5 years - I'm all for it. But there is no need to bf a 7 year old. Not if they're getting a good balanced diet, which if they're not then it's lazy parenting.

Imagine if a parent asked the mum if her kid can come for a sleepover?

'No, darling johnny is still breastfeeding at 7 years old. I can't be away from him.' Christ the teasing and bullying that would encourage.

Breastfeeding a 7 year old is giving off 'want bitty' vibes.

Most older children that are still nursing will happily go without it if needed. My DC goes to bed for other people no problem at all. Doesn't even mention it. That's the advantage of an older nursling, you can explain things to them and they understand.

They also don't typically mention it to anyone as it's just a mundane way of life. In the same way that they don't tell anyone that they had a glass of milk earlier.

I'm not sure if anyone other than my husband has any idea I'm still feeding my 4 year old tbh. It just doesn't come up in conversation and it's only ever at bedtime or first thing.
.

I have a question - do Mum's who feed only morning and night or every couple of days not get sore breasts? Or blocked ducts / leaky boobs etc? If DD misses a feed I'm in agony but DD is still very young so things might be different when DC are older?

I'm not sure about natural term weaning, DD is only 3 months old so it seems a long off. I hope that I wouldn't judge someone feeding their child in a healthy and natural way. However I do feel a bit weird thinking about school age children and above breast feeding - I'd never say that to someone who has made that choice, but I guess I have my own hang ups.

Feeding my 3Y 2m. She feeds morning wake, nap, before bed for 2-3 minutes at a time. And no, I'd say feeding her is totally different from the boobs filling up / sore / leaky bit at the beginning! I stopped leaking around 6 or so months as my supply settled down and then as she weaned onto food and naturally dropped down the volume, the fullness stopped too. It's still as lovely to do for her as ever though!

Actual evidence that human milk has nutritional benefit for adults too but after milk teeth fall out it is impossible to create a latch to get milk directly from the breast. (Some children lose milk teeth late - aka 7 years old)
There is a market for expressed human milk - purchased by sports people or people with inness or other.

While you may have guzzled cow milk you are not a calf so it is not genetically designed for you. Doesn't have the nutritional benefit for humans that human milk does.
Would you approve of a child suckling on a cow under?
It would be impossible I imagine for any human to get milk but sucking on an udder. And impossible for a calf to get milk by suckling on a human breast.

But then there’s also no need to breastfeed a 2.5 year old either who should also be getting a good balanced diet.

A 2.5 year old can still have breastmilk alongside a good balanced diet...

I fed my youngest until he was 3. I've got people who still tell me how weird and unnecessary it was to feed for so long.

He's 18 now, so I stopped 15 fucking years ago!

My child was almost 6. But BF at this age is very different to at a week old or a month old or even 2 years
It evolves. My child stayed over at grandparents. Child would go days without then have a day when it was needed. Much like cuddles there are days when they are busy and days when they need to reconnect.
The children that naturally wean later may have other factors causing their need of that connection for longer. My child has medical needs and the BM kept them healthier and also helped with nervous medical interventions. Health had a decline once BF fully stopped.

Some children have dietary limitations
Some children have learning difficulties
Health reasons
Emotional needs.

It is not a one size fit all

Breastfeeding is extremely clever. Everything about it adapts to suit the age of the child and how often they feed. So an older child who feeds less often means less milk is produced.

I always thought it was a bit strange and didn't think anyone fed past 1 (but then I also only knew one person who breastfed at all). Then I started going to a bf support group and it made me realise that lots of mummies were feeding longer than that.. plus a lot of the health benefits for mum and baby are linked to length of time spent feeding.

I'm still bf ds who's 2 and ill probably wean shortly at his pace.

For me it's been brilliant when ds has been sick and unwilling to take water or food as he's still been willing to nurse so I knew he was getting something. Such a quick way to soothe him if he's unwell or has had a bump etc and it definitely feels like it's a way he looks to reconnect with me when I get home from work and when he wakes up in the morning.

I also know some people who have used it really successfully to help their ND children regulate when they were getting overwhelmed while working on building in other ways to soothe them.

I wouldn't judge anyone for feeding longer and I think the reason more people don't is rooted in misinformation and our culture of formula use being the norm.

I EBF my little one til 6 months then slowly cut down til we stopped at about 10 months. Honestly when teeth started appearing and food was becoming more of a thing I just didn't find it necessary any more.

Don't find myself judging those who do but any longer certainly wasn't for me. The thought of my child ever walking / crawling up to me and trying to help themselves I'm personally not comfortable with.

As someone else has said, your supply adjusts perfectly. My advice is, don't think too far ahead, just take it as it comes.

I literally went into the whole bf thing pretty blind! I just thought I would try it and see how I got on. It worked for me, I loved it and I just did it. I am sorry in retrospect that I didn't continue to feed DD1 and DD2 for longer, though I guess a year is respectable. And DS made his own decision before I was ready as I said somewhere upthread! I have no idea how long I would have carried on if he had wanted to. I think I do feel a little bit iffy about some 4 or 5 year old still feeding but who knows? It's just not been my experience. He was only feeding during the night at the point he stopped.

I never in almost 4 years of breastfeeding fed in public. I just couldn't do it. So there was lots of slipping into the back seat of the car or finding mother and baby rooms, or going discreetly upstairs in someone's house. I wish I had had more courage. I love to see a mum breastfeeding when out and about (I notice, I don't stare!!)

So can a 3 year old, 5 year old and even a 7 year old. It's a poor argument against breastfeeding an older child.

If there's no need to breastfeed a 5 year old or 7 year old due to the fact that it's unnecessary then the age of a child that isn't a baby makes little difference.

Though it is uncomfortable for some in our culture to acknowledge, breastfeeding for 2-7 years is the physiological norm. Anthropological studies bear this out. I find it interesting that extended breastfeeding has to somehow be proven to beneficial or justified. It's the norm, it's what our species has done for millennia - so rather than talking about "benefits" of extended breastfeeding, why aren't we framing the risks that we (as a society) take by feeding infants and children in a new, different way than our species ever has before. Probably on an individual level this isn't that much of a big deal but on a population level, it is.

I think if we had the kind of society and culture that enabled and/or encouraged all mothers to breastfeed well into early childhood, we would see less SIDS, SUDC, obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer, tooth decay, allergy/atopy, respiratory and gastrointestinal disease on a population level (some of these applying to mothers as well as infants/children). But this assertion will be very difficult to prove conclusively, because it is not possible to design an ethical double blinded trial of extended breastfeeding Vs the non-physiological and extremely modern alternatives. Unfortunately there is no financial incentive to investigate this other than from a public health perspective - there is not and never will be money to be made from making breastfeeding easier to do.

It's also very difficult to separate the loss of extended breastfeeding from other massive shifts in our culture, diet and lifestyle.

But how could switching away from the physiological norm (with lots of evidence that breastfeeding positively effects affecting airways, gut, immune system, nervous system, metabolic system etc) in ways that we quite literally don't understand ever be something that we assume to be good? This is purely cultural. You won't find a reason for to stop "extended" (itself a misnomer) breastfeeding on somebody else's terms other than vague subjective judgements such as it makes them uncomfortable, surely it's time to stop, what is the reason to do it, etc etc. This thread is a case in point, it boils down to "this is normal for human beings and has many benefits" on one side and "I just don't like it" on the other.

Love it. Still bf at 6. Natural weaning is great.

'Actual evidence that human milk has nutritional benefit for adults too but after milk teeth fall out it is impossible to create a latch to get milk directly from the breast. (Some children lose milk teeth late - aka 7 years old)
There is a market for expressed human milk - purchased by sports people or people with inness or other.

While you may have guzzled cow milk you are not a calf so it is not genetically designed for you. Doesn't have the nutritional benefit for humans that human milk does.
Would you approve of a child suckling on a cow under?
It would be impossible I imagine for any human to get milk but sucking on an udder. And impossible for a calf to get milk by suckling on a human breast.'

@Changeagain3 do you say the same about yogurt, cheese? Do you drink tea or coffee? Humans aren't designed to eat chips and UPF either but im willing to bed you and your children eat or have eaten UPF so that argument doesn't really stand. There's plenty of things in a normal persons diet that we aren't 'designed' to eat.

No, of course I wouldn't approve my child sucking from a cows udder. But I absolutely do give her cups of fresh cows milk, as it's good for her, has healthy fats, and tastes good!

Human milk is healthier.

I'm not denying my children eat all sorts of unnecessary foods as part of a balanced diet and enjoying their food.
I'm disputing the argument that human milk is bad (nope very very healthy), or wrong to consume after a certain age (safe and ok at any age - over the age of losing first teeth humans would need to have the human milk in a glass as they can't physically get it from the source - while they can directly this is ok too)

I imagine the different ages for losing milk teeth is also linked to the length a child body needs the human milk nutrition.

I’m sorry to hear about the GP, OP, that’s really disappointing, would you make a complaint? That’s not NHS advice or evidenced based, just sounds like a visceral personal reaction in which case I wonder how professional are they in other respects. They would benefit from hearing how they impacted you.

I fed one until 2 and a bit and another til close to 4. For me anything much beyond 4 felt too much (I never set out to feed that long!) mainly because of my own experience as a child. My sister was 5.5 years younger and I have a distinct memory of asking my mum if I could try the milk - so I must have been between 5.5 and 6.5 - this memory disturbed me a bit as a child, as once I became older and aware of body boundaries it felt ‘wrong’ that I had touched my mum in that way. Not all kids would feel like that but it influenced my decision to stop when I did - feeds were v infrequent by then anyway.

Plus my child now 6 feels she is ‘weird’ for the slightest differences from other kids, I’d dread to think how she and others would view it if she innocently said she still gets mums milk.

Brilliant post.

'your supply adjusts perfectly' - yes. I only ever got engorged/leaking in the very early days of bf. Dc2 was tandem fed alongside dc1, incl throughout pregnancy, and that was incredibly uncomplicated (I was told by an obstetrician that dc2 wouldn't get colostrum but not so).

And yes to bf becoming physiologically impossible from a particular age - even with my dc1 (my fed-for-4.5y one) I got the feeling, towards the end, that he was sort of losing his latch/'technique'.

I BF mine beyond 3.5, although by that age it was mostly just a tiny little feed at bedtime. It was brilliant for us in terms of comfort and the bond between us, and I'm sure it still had health benefits for him. I only fed him at home from 3 onwards though - never had any negative reactions but I was worried that I might, particularly because he was really tall by then and looked about 5! It's none of anybody else's business - carry on until you are both ready to stop.