At what age does breastfeeding become weird?

[TransatlanticCityGirl]

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"?

I don't recognise the term extreme breastfeeding.

My husband wouldn't recognise the description of some blokes collective gripping over missed boobs and intimacy.
Bf, children bed sharing, whatever... no reason these things aren't shared parenting choices. No reason that these things impact on intimacy any more than parenting does generally.

Yeah, I guess it depends on your own sexual preferences. I missed my DH being able to play with my breasts when I was bf'ing. I think he probably did, too, although he never said.

Sure havingabath, if they are joint parenting decisions. Unfortunately, blokes being turfed out of the marital bed and extended breastfeeding seem to feature quite regularly on the Relationships forum.

I would breastfeed forever if I could turf out DP. He snores!

Gosh it never occurred to me to worry about DH touching my boobs! Sex is sex and BF is BF...they really are in two totally different pigeon holes in my mind.

How do men have the right to veto? Well I don't think they could actually veto (without obvious abuse) but support from your partner can be critical in establishing BF, so in reality I don't think a lot of people could get through the early days in the teeth of a gale of disapproval.

I do recall expressing milk for grandparents to have the obligatory feeding baby photos...but expressing a few times a day so that dad can feed the baby might be quite an extra effort...unless dad is going to do all the sterilising or it is the night feed....well it's certainly not impossible and I am sure it happens!

At the other end of the spectrum my DD's first boob experience occurred thanks to my DH (under the watch of a MW) while I was still unconscious after the birth.

"actively encouraging them to move onto the next stage of development" (ok that isn't an actual quote, I'm paraphrasing because I'm too lazy to go back up)

I think this is nonsense, sorry. If you followed that logic then breastfeeding five year olds would still be crawling and in nappies. Besides, the vast majority of the population feeds their school age children breast milk, just breast milk of a cow. It doesn't infantilise them.

I nannied for ten years then had two of my own and the oldest is 16 so I've been looking after children for 26 years. IME the more you push kids to grow up the more many of them dig their heels in and refuse kicking and screaming. If you try to push something they are not ready for it usually takes longer and is more painful than if you had allowed it to happen naturally. Potty training is a prime example of this!!

Anyone who has breastfed longer than, say, 6months can tell you that there is pretty much nothing you can do to get a child to breastfeed if they don't want to. Doesn't matter if you want to go out to dinner and have the babysitter waiting and want to do the evening feed now, not in half an hour. Saying that it is about the adult is baloney IMO, a mother can't make an unwilling child breastfeed longer. If a 5 year old is breastfeeding once or twice a week it is because they want to. It may squick me out (it does) but that is because of all the many cultural hangups we have lovingly been imbued with.

"This country is OBSESSED with making children grow up fast."..."Ive taken to say he will do X when he is good and ready."

ITA, the U.S. is WORSE believe it or not.

My HV was so concerned because my eldest didn't walk until he was 15 months. Guess what, he is 16 now and walks just fine. In fact he is an elite level athlete. He also talked a little late. He talks too much now, somedays I'd like him to shut up a bit, especially when he is being pissy.

I intend on breastfeeding until my ds decides he doesn't want it anymore, if that means doing it until he's 4 then so what? It'll probably be a bed time and morning thing anyway. It's recommended for the first 2 years Isn't it? So to say it has no nutritional benefit from 18 months is rubbish.
It doesn't become weird at any point, it's other people's problem if it's considered weird. Your MIL is bu. :)

DH on one side DD on the other no problem.

DD very rarely co slept for more than an hr or so anyway before going back to her own room and only fed at night if ill when older.

Not getting this message is why DFs DC was told no more milk when she was 5.

She and her DH are softies, DD would have got her privileges withdraw long before that if she hadn't instinctively understood mum+sleep=

Doormat,
How strange that you are still trying to insist that I intended to insult you personally when it is clear to everyone else (except 2Shoes) that my use of the word 'your' was in a context where it meant 'the', or indeed 'ones'.

It was not a personal remark in the slightest and the fact you refuse to countenance that this may just be the case makes me very reluctant to pursue the discussion with you further.

I have no idea whatsoever what your personal danger point might be, if indeed you have one - do you see what I am saying, this concept does not easily transpose into an individual situation. It's not meant to describe one.

You were describing extended breastfeeding as potentially causing harm; I was tryingto counter that and explain that if anything causes inappropriate attachment, it's denying something a child needs. So 'your' danger point meant, if there is a danger point in any parental/child dynamic, which you are trying to assert there is, it is my scenario rather than yours.

2shoes Mon 14-May-12 12:43:37
THAT is your danger point
not being over generous in terms of parental care

that is a nasty thing ot say to someone you do not know
_

Sure, it would have been had it been intended to describe Doormat's parenting, but it wasn't. I don't know anything about her! Because I don't know her...hmm...think on't

Oh I see now

it's my punctuation (or lack of)

You thought I was saying, that DOORMAT is not over generous in terms of parental care!

No no no no way.

I meant 'that is the danger point; the danger point in parenting is NOT: being overgenerous in terms of parental care.'

I meant that being overgenerous is not dangerous, while denying children necessary comfort can certainly be dangerous.. That's all.

Sorry if it sounded confusing.

Entropygirl - re "giving up BF / developmental indicator: losing milk teeth
Natural time frame: 6-8 years / Weird if not done: around 8 years?"

What makes you think children should drink breast milk until their milk teeth fall out? Yes, we call them "milk teeth" but surely they are there until age 7 or so because a child's mouth is too small to accommodate adult teeth in earlier years, not because as long as they are in the mouth, he should drink breast milk.

Pre baby and MN, I think I would have thought past 2 was weird, 4+ really weird. Not sure why, though.
I'm breastfeeding 8 month old dd and I love it. She's allergic to dairy and won't take a bottle so I expect we'll keep going for quite some time :) I'd like her to self-wean although I'll see how we go.
Have just asked DP, he says it's "creepy when they can ask for it" - but at 8mo DD can quite cheerfully pull my boob out my top herself and latch on so if that's not asking for it I don't know what is!

CoteDAzur think she is referring to some anthrological theory (K Dwyer?) that looks at when higher primates (obviously closely linked to us) stop breast feeding. I have a vague memory that it's usually around the point of teeth changing from first/milk teeth - and approx half way to puberty. Obviously that's a different number of years to humans - but IIRC there was some consistency across primates about the relative timing of teeth / puberty / breast feeding cessation.

cote I am not sure that follows. We keep getting more teeth even as adults (am having a problem with one turning up right now), so I don't think jaw size is really the limiting factor.

But to be honest I think arguing about milk teeth is missing the point - which was that the time scales for development for bottle feeding and breast feeding are not the same and there is absolutely no reason to expect that they would be.

I think extreme breastfeeding is when you bf your baby/child while climbing Mt Everest or something like that! :o

co-sleeping and bf do not mean Dh has to be kicked out of bed. Nor does bf mean that boobs are off limit to partner. Maybe in the early days when you're liable to squirt milk everywhere all the time, but then who feels like sex in the early days anyway? But once bf is established I've found that this doesn't happen.

Globally I think the average age that children stop breastfeeding is between 4 and 5 years. But tbh averages are not much help since so many people don't breast feed at all or only for 6 weeks. In the UK my sense is up to 1 year is seen as normal. I am still feeding DS at 15 months.

Globally I think the average age that children stop breastfeeding is between 4 and 5 years.

Its not the average, its the age when it stops for all but an minute % of humans. The average is in developing countries is in the 2nd year, in the OECD within 6 months.

Incidentally, there has been quite a bit of study of caveman societies which showed Homo Sapiens typically wean at c 2 yers old, which maps to the average for most pre-industrial/developing societies today.

There is also quite a bit of research (usually ignored in BF fan circles of course) that complementary feeding accelerated baby development (especially the brain) and increased both bay and mother fitness (baby gets independent quicker, and thus aids survival) of early humans - ie complementary feeding is not "un-natural" but is an evolutionary adjustment.

Hang on - what is complementary feeding? To me, that says breast AND food. Which I'm fairly sure all extended breast fed babies do anyway. It's not an either/or situation.

Have I misunderstood?

Also I thought the 2 year average thing was more because of subsequent children. And that the last child typically breast fed for longer?

'Complementary feeding' is indeed breastmilk and other foods. I am not sure of whateme's point - there is evidence from current round-the-world practices that many, many babies are given other foods from an early age (birth, even, and the first few months, though usually in tiny amounts), even in cultures in developing countries which routinely do longer-term breastfeeding. It's a public health issue there, because of the risks of non-exclusive breastfeeding - paper from Bangladesh here: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2753993/

It's very difficult for anthropologists, archeologists and others to be sure of what happened thousands of years ago, but there is good inferential evidence: some of the inferring is done by looking at what pre-industrial cultures still do today; some of it is done by looking at the teeth and the bones in the remains of children.

As I understand it, the teeth/bone evidence will indicate when breastmilk stops being a major part of nutrition, and solid foods take over. You can tell, apparently, if a child has eaten meat habitually. The teeth/bone evidence can't tell us when bf actually stops for good. Yes, solid food does/did take over from about 2 years, but it's likely that in many societies breastfeeding carried on, ceasing gradually over a period of several years - we know that from seeing what goes on today.

The 'normal' way to feed for our species, historically, is to breastfeed long-term, with solid/non-milk foods part of the infant diet from early on ('complementary food'). The 'exact' age for these other foods varies, but in a lot of societies, probably began/begins earlier than is good for health.

Forgot to add: when there is information about how long mothers had between pregnancies, and how many children they had, that can help work out how much bf went on, too. I understand ancient burial sites can reveal this information, especially ones where family groups are buried together.

Becoming pregnant again 2-3 years after, indicates a return to fertility (obv)...but this does not mean bf has fully ceased, by any means.

I breastfed until my dd was just older than 1 yr. I stopped because y doc recommended it as I needed to take antibiotics, but I was starting to wean her off bfeeding.

I think its only weird if it starts to become about the mother and not the child.

If the physical act of breastfeeding becomes very uncomfortable because of the age/size of the child or if the child seems to be disliking the situation, then it is time to stop IMO.

My mother breast fed my db until he was 3 and had another baby in the meantime. TBH we older siblings found that this made us uncomfortable. It was sort of embarrassing to an 8 and 9 year old to have their 3 year old db lifting up mums top and 'having a feed' in the school playground and we got picked on a little bit when school mates noticed.

I think its up to the individual, but the most important thing to consider is why you are choosing to breastfeed for years? Are you comforting the child or yourself?

thatisall, I think we have demolished the notion that a mother can 'make' a child breastfeed when he does not want to....so longer-term breastfeeding is about the child, inevitably, but it's ok if the mother is getting a good experience out of it as well.

Can I ask, how would someone know they were only doing it for their comfort, and not their child's? Surely this is an essentially mutual act?