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AIBU?

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Original poster

At what age does breastfeeding become weird?

594 replies

TransatlanticCityGirl · 12/05/2012 23:16

My MIL made a comment today about a mother who breastfed her child until she was 5 years old - as in, 'can you believe it???? that's just not right!'

Which got me wondering, where do most people draw the line in terms of how old is too "weird"?

OP posts:
ItsAPublicForumWhine · 14/05/2012 10:55

I'd say from birth, really. Grin

StealthPolarBear · 14/05/2012 10:56

:o

gramercy · 14/05/2012 11:01

In terms of "weird", I saw a woman breastfeeding her child after school in the playground - the child was in her school uniform. Now I'm sorry, but that was weird.

Mosman · 14/05/2012 11:03

Well that depends, my daughter was in prep school uniform complete with blazer and boater at 2.5 years old.

startail · 14/05/2012 11:04

Strangely Doormat as whichwithallthe trimming said continuing BF seems to be a tool for coping with growing up. It very definitely, in my DDs case at least, had nothing to to with wanting to remain a baby.

There's the, perhaps, over used phrase of parenting being about "Giving children roots and wings".

BFing was one of the roots DD2 chose alongside ensuring DH reads to her or at least bothers to get out of his study and kisses her goodnight.
Mum loves me- check, Dad loves me -check, big sister is alive and annoying - check. Now I can face the big wide world.

And face it with a confidence, and maturity beyond her years when, that is necessary, is what she does.

Shagmundfreud · 14/05/2012 11:04

Doormat - we have now moved on to the point where we can give our children milk from another species which is less nutritionally appropriate than milk from their own species, and this is the choice 90% of mothers make for babies over 6 months. And you see this as an 'advance' in nutritional terms? Why?

Nancy66 · 14/05/2012 11:05

Witch - sorry, still don't see how breastfeeding is enabling any of that stuff.
And haven't you just admitted doing the very thing people say extended breastfeeding is often about - keeping the child as a baby?

PeggyCarter · 14/05/2012 11:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

PickledFanjoCat · 14/05/2012 11:08

How exactly is extended breastfeeding keeping a child as a baby? I really dont agree. A child that is breastfeeding does everything a child who is not does, apart from receiving milk in a different form?

PeggyCarter · 14/05/2012 11:11

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

startail · 14/05/2012 11:11

Actually Mumsnobest it doesn't feel strange chattering and BFing because it doesn't happen over night.

Older DCs don't grow up in step changes like babies, they don't suddenly, roll over, crawl, walk or say their first word.

BFing them doesn't suddenly feel any different to yesterday except your legs go numb quicker because they get heavierGrin

Shagmundfreud · 14/05/2012 11:12

Should add doormat, that current thinking is that the 'caveman diet' which consisted predominently of game, berries, fish and the odd root is now being seen by many as an optimal diet, and that modern diets with their very high grain and sugar content are possibly a bit of a disaster in health terms. Children grow well if they get plenty of protein - most children in the west get loads through dairy products, hence huge increases in average height and weight in recent decades. Sadly this has gone hand in hand with steadily growing consumption of refined carbohydrates and sugars, so that we now have the fattest generation of children ever and a growing apocalypse of type 2 diabetes on its way which will bring the NHS to its knees. So much for modern children having exemplary diets....

Flightty · 14/05/2012 11:14

Pickled no it's no problem, I was half asleep this morning and typing really thoughtlessly - sorry to have made anyone feel bad in the first place.

also I'm not really offended by Doormat, as I can see that she isn't really getting it.

Doormat:

' i would find it weird to find a child of 5 in a nappy, using a bottle, being pushed around in a pram....breastfeeding is no different imo...for all these children who want to continue at 4 yo and beyond..do you always give into what your child wants..'

erm,

nope!

Have you EVER known a child who still wanted to wear a nappy, with no extenuating circumstances, beyond this age...and as for repeating the age of my child, with your tone of aggression I don't think I want to.

I'm not talking about my child. And I'm not being vehement. I just think you're wrong.

PeggyCarter · 14/05/2012 11:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Nancy66 · 14/05/2012 11:15

Here:

she does not have to leave behind that closeness that people associate with babies and not small children...

Flightty · 14/05/2012 11:16

Plus it's clear you're not even reading a lot of the things I'm writing. My child isn't still being breastfed, for a start...

PickledFanjoCat · 14/05/2012 11:19

No probs flightty I can see where you were going.

I think the point that swings it for me as it were is to ask why is it so strange to give a toddler/child breast milk over that from the udder of a cow? Of course its not. As my baby ended up being formula fed I now give him cows milk and of course the vast majority of us use it in everyday life, its become the norm.

But why is that more acceptable to some people than breastmilk?

Would the same people have a problem if it was expressed and given in a cup? Probably not.

PickledFanjoCat · 14/05/2012 11:21

My DS is not breast fed, and a close friends still is, and they were born within a week of each other, and there is NO difference whatsoever in their development or independence.

Flightty · 14/05/2012 11:21

Nancy, it might be subtle but the clue is in the words 'have to'.

If you teach a child that you are there and that comfort in whatever form they are used to it is available to them, they will eventually feel safe enough to reject that comfort and move on to finding it within themselves where necessary and thus, by providing the option you are indeed enabling their growth in independance.

Independance is not something you give by force. It is something that comes from inside the child, when that child's security is established.

You can see it in teenagers. Chuck out a kid at 14 and they will seek comfort in sometimes dangerous forms. They know they cannot have what they may need. They will be fearful.

Allow your teenager to stay as long as he or she needs and that secure base is exactly the means by which they come to the decision to leave, when they are ready.

It's all in John Bowlby.

PeggyCarter · 14/05/2012 11:21

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mumnosbest · 14/05/2012 11:22

Moajab and startail, I love the image of your children talking and giggling whilst feeding. Hope you're teaching them manners though, like not to talk with their mouths full Grin
As DD is my last we might be revising for GCSEs whilst she's feeding as I will really miss it when she weans herself.

doormat · 14/05/2012 11:23

shagmund i have never stated that milk from another species is superior to bf...where have i stated that.....as i have stated you automatically assume because a person think it is weird for a child of 4-5 yrs old to still be bf..you all automatically assume that i have never bf...i have bf all my children except for ds5, which was taken out of my hands.....i have felt the closeness, the bond etc etc but i have also accepted that my children have to become independant little beings and learn to develop that independence by being potty trained, weaned, walk using reins wherever possible

joyful to be fair there is a huge difference between a 2.2 yold and a 5 yr old...

Nancy66 · 14/05/2012 11:24

Lots of children don't want to use the toilet, don't want to go into a normal bed etc...should they not have to do these things either?

Flightty · 14/05/2012 11:25

just to clarify, for Pickled and for others - I am not exclusively talking about comfort in the form of breastfeeding, and it can be given and received in many, many forms for an infant.

As you state there is no difference in the security of your child and your friend's.

this is clearly because both children have had what they needed.

It is purely in the context of an already breastfed child who is feeding for longer than average, and wants this in terms of comfort, that I am trying to explain it is not wrong or damaging. That is all - I don't think bottle fed children are less secure. Just that to offer comfort in the manner a child is used to, is not going to harm them.

You would still cuddle a child who was used to a bottle. You may give them a bottle to comfort them or help them sleep.
Breastfeeding is no different. It doesn't make them stay babies.

Flightty · 14/05/2012 11:26

Nancy it's all fairly immaterial imo.

They will get to the point where they want to do these things eventually. The more secure they are, the earlier that may be.