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"?

tiktok I think I've worded my post poorly when it comes to that point.

What I mean is that, breast feeding is nice. I loved it. I could happily have breastfed my dd for years as I found it comforting, not just her. My bf journey had to come to an end as I was poorly, but I was starting to reduce feeds as I wanted dd, to be able to manage without me.

It isn't true of all mothers who breastfeed for years, but I have met some ( not all )who continue long term as they struggle with separation. I would argue that a child can be 'made' to breastfeed. We 'make' little ones do lots of things they don't initially want to do.

eat some more broccoli please sweetheart and then we'll play with bricks
no, it's time for bed

Please understand, I am not saying that long term breastfeeding is wrong or that those who do it are bad mothers.

I can speak only from my own experience as a child who's mother breastfed one of her children for years, as a mother who breastfed for 14 months (and mourned the end of it a little tbh), as a former post natal counsellor and as a person who used to run a toddler group.

I have observed many breastfeeding mothers and what should be understood more than everything else is that every child/mother is different and that the focus should be on the child.

thatisall, you say "I would argue that a child can be 'made' to breastfeed. We 'make' little ones do lots of things they don't initially want to do.
eat some more broccoli please sweetheart and then we'll play with bricks
no, it's time for bed"

I am not saying that parents cannot make their children do many things, including things they really, really don't want to do. They can use coercion, bribery :), force (both mild and strong), deal-making, gentle persuasion, punishment for non-compliance, encouragement, tacit coercion (when the child understands approval will only come with compliance).

I have too known many mothers who have bf for longer than the culturally-usual. I have never known any of them use these techniques, and I am curious as to which one on the list (or another one) you reckon mothers who breastfeed only for their own comfort might use?

entropygirl - re "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"

Of course, it is. A baby's jaws wouldn't properly function and would probably be deformed if you tried to put adult teeth into them. Afaik, that is the reason by we first get baby-sized small teeth, and many years later we get the adult teeth slowly, as jaws grow to accommodate them.

You may have had a different point to make, but this is what interested me in your post. I would be grateful if you could post links to research (rather than mummy websites) that conclude children should be breastfed until their milk teeth fall out.

tik tok there are a few situations mentioned by previous posters.

I have seen a mother try to force a 2 year old to have a feed, mid afternoon, as she wanted him to sleep and said this was the only way ( I certainly missed it at bedtime post breast feeding!).

I have also spoken to mothers who are distraught as their dc have begun to refuse feeds, some as old as 3, and they want advice as to how to 'encourage them' to do it.

There are many women who breast feed for longer than the cultural norm, to the delight of their dc.

I am not saying it is wrong at all, but as I said in my first post, the question of why and when should be considered. But I think the question of why and when should be considered when weaning onto solid foods, first shoes, Nursery, cot to bed etc etc.

All children and mothers are different.

As I said, when we were little, we really struggled with our Mother's long term breastfeeding of our db. We felt pushed out, embarrassed, we were picked on. There is so much to be considered, not just whether it is socially acceptable, weird or normal. Who cares about normality.

"as a former post natal counsellor and as a person who used to run a toddler group"

You have witnessed women repeatedly coercing children to breastfeed?

Really?

"I have seen a mother try to force a 2 year old to have a feed, mid afternoon, as she wanted him to sleep and said this was the only way ( I certainly missed it at bedtime post breast feeding!)"

What - you mean she was saying 'come on, have a feed and then you can go to sleep'?

But this isn't forcing a child to continue breastfeeding. This is encouraging a child to breastfeed on one occasion when it is already something that is part of the child's normal day to day life.

If the mother repeatedly tried to do this day after day in the face of a child's refusal to breastfeed that would be a different thing. But then you haven't witnessed that have you? And of course if a child repeatedly rejected the breast it wouldn't be long before the mothers milk dried up, so that continued breastfeeding would become physically difficult, if not impossible.

I have spoken to many women who have asked how they might 'encourage' their dc to continue as they have begun to refuse, yes.

They are not bad mothers!! Many feel they want to continue until it becomes impossible (many speak of when their milk stops) and some are simply struggling with their child growing up.

Like I said many women breast feed long term and both mother and child find it a mutually pleasant and beneficial experience.

And yes, i have seen a few women try and 'make' a child feed who doesn't want to.

"I have also spoken to mothers who are distraught as their dc have begun to refuse feeds, some as old as 3, and they want advice as to how to 'encourage them' to do it."

And what have you suggested? That the mother continue to offer the breast but not make a fuss about it? Would you consider continuing to offer the breast akin to 'forcing' a child to continue breastfeeding?

Shagmund indeed, if it continued the milk would dry up, which was a bug fear amongst the women who would speak about their difficulties in getting their toddlers to feed.

I really am not bashing women who want to breastfeed long tern. Every credit to them for doing it at all!! All I am saying is that, as with all aspects of parenthood, there are things to be considered at different points

"And yes, i have seen a few women try and 'make' a child feed who doesn't want to".

Oh for goodness sake, all of us who've breastfed will know there are times when we try to get a reluctant feeder to latch on and drink. I remember my son fighting sleep when he was a toddler and me knowing that if I could just get him to feed he'd go to sleep. So I'd try to hold him on my lap and encourage him to feed by offering him my breast and gently pulling his face towards my chest. Sometimes it would work. Is this 'forcing a child to breastfeed'? Is it wrong?

shagmund the advice would of course depend on the specific situation.

But......if the child was eating a balanced, solid diet, it would be appropriate to reassure the mother that their child will not be suffering health-wise if they do not accept a feed. The big issue amongst the majority was the anxiety it would cause the mother in this situation. They would need reassurance that their attention and affection is not being rejected.

I would advise that if they wanted to continue, that they try a different time, environment, but that they not constantly offer the breast as the dc will 'learn' a specific response i.e. refusal.

Ultimately if the child will not feed, then breast feeding cannot continue, but the choice as to when to stop trying is the mothers

"there are things to be considered at different points"

I think there's only two things to be considered: whether the mother is willing and able to continue breastfeeding, and whether the child is.

I suspect that some people are always looking for opportunities to encourage the end of breastfeeding when a mum is feeding a toddler, so if the child becomes in any way reluctant to breastfeed that's seen as 'it', when in fact all children go through phases where their behaviour changes - they may stop or start sleeping through, stop or start going to the toilet on their own, stop or start eating particular foods or using a dummy. Why, if a child appears reluctant to breastfeed shouldn't a mother encourage them to keep feeding, as long as it's done with kindness and sensitivity? If breastfeeding really has come to and end then the child will eventually make that clear to the mother by persistently refusing the breast.

"but that they not constantly offer the breast as the dc will 'learn' a specific response i.e. refusal"

So completely different advice than you'd offer than that which you'd give when a child is rejecting certain foods (because my understanding is that you CONTINUE to offer the rejected food, without comment and without making a big fuss.

shagmund I am NOT referring to a child who is difficult to settle down on the odd feed, I am talking about a specific situation where an anxious mother did try to force her toddler to feed. I won't go into details as it is about an individual mother and not mothers in general, but it was not an isolated incident.

If you choose to take exception to everything I say, that is your prerogative

When my DS is very very tired but fighting it (he is 17 months) I try putting him to the breast. There is no way on this earth that he would feed if he doesn't want to and many times he does refuse. I guess that someone watching this 'struggle' might think of it as me 'forcing' or 'co-ercing' him to feed but it is just me doing as tiktok says and trying to get him to sleep and attempting to use something I know often works.

How this translates into me forcing a baby to continue to breastfeed I don't know.

"... a mother try to force a 2 year old to have a feed, mid afternoon, as she wanted him to sleep and said this was the only way.... 'come on, have a feed and then you can go to sleep'? But this isn't forcing a child to continue breastfeeding. This is encouraging a child to breastfeed on one occasion when it is already something that is part of the child's normal day to day life"

Many people would say that a 2 year old should be able to sleep on her own, without the breast.

Should the mum not be encouraging her child in that direction, if any encouragement is to be done?

dueling it doesn't translate into forcing him, it is also not what I have referred to.

shagmund if a two year old refuses solid food and stops eating, their health will suffer

If a 2 year old refuses breast milk and stops feeding, their health will not suffer.

We have a duty to keep our children in the best health possible, i.e.. continue to offer food, but we also have a duty to teach our children that they deserve respect. i.e. if they are in situation they do not like, they can say no or stop and that should be respected.

Before you say, oh so we shouldn't bath them if they don't want or oh so we shouldn't give them medicine they don't like. You know that isn't what I mean

CoteDAzur, I can't speak for entropygirl, but my understanding of the teeth connection is that latching and efficient milk extraction becomes impossible once the jaw shape has changed.
Katherine Dettwyler, anthropologist, cites research by Smith (1989,1990, but I cannot access the journal details) which demonstrated that in large mammals, including apes, breastfeeding cessation coincides with the eruption of the first permanent molars. In her book "A time to wean" which attempts to establish a blueprint for natural hominid breastfeeding she uses a large number of factors to correlate humans with other large mammals, including the age at which the first permenant molar erupts. I cannot find anywhere this data has been published other than as a book (quite possibly because it is several hundred pages long), so I would presume that it has not been peer-reviewed. However, the web is not littered with rebuttals, and she is an established professional in her field, so I would also presume that there is not widespread disagreement.
Would be interested to hear otherwise

*Many people would say that a 2 year old should be able to sleep on her own, without the breast.

Should the mum not be encouraging her child in that direction, if any encouragement is to be done?*

Well yes. My 21 month old DD can sleep by herself (or actually with the help of the nursery workers patting her back or rocking her) when away from me, she can fall asleep in the buggy or sling, she can fall asleep while being comforted by her father etc etc, but I still BF her to sleep for her lunchtime nap when I am at home with her and her 3.5yr old DS, because that is the easiest, quickest and most pleasurable way to get her to sleep so I can spend time with her brother. Just because she is being BF to sleep on these occassions doesn't mean that she can't fall asleep by other means.

With regards to children learning to sleep by their self, well that depends entirely on the development on the child. They don't need to be "taught" to self sooth, it happens on it's own. Even at the nursery my DCs attend, they help the under 3's drift off to sleep. It is seen as a very normal thing to do.

choceyes That's nice. Your DD is confident enough to settle without you at nursery but get special 'mummy-time' at home. I really like that and agree that the whole experience of breast feeding should be as natural as possible.

Notanexcitingname - That is interesting, but rather insufficient to conclude that human babies should be breastfed until their milk teeth come out. Even if the end of BF in apes coincides with the eruption of permanent molars, (1) correlation does not mean causation, and it doesn't even necessarily mean relation to a common cause, (2) even if causation exists, may be due to a myriad of factors and not necessarily because that is the physiological ideal, and (3) even if so (not proven at all, as I've understood it) that doesn't automatically translate into "and so should human children".

"my understanding of the teeth connection is that latching and efficient milk extraction becomes impossible once the jaw shape has changed"

Surely not impossible, considering that there are some children who are breastfed after their adult teeth have mostly come in, aged 7 or 8.

entropygirl - re your "new tooth coming in"

I haven't had a new tooth come in since I was 20, which was... ermm... 20 years ago. Considering that we grow until age 18 or so, that seems to me completely normal that teeth would come in until slightly after the jaws are fully grown.

In my case, all four wisdom teeth had to be extracted at the time because there is no place for them in my jaws and had they continued to push through, they would have completely deformed my teeth.

"Many people would say that a 2 year old should be able to sleep on her own, without the breast"

many people would smile and nod, smile and nod...

Coted'azur, I'm not entirely sure I agree on your (1); since the in the study "apes" covered a number of species, and other mammals were included too (87 species in total iirc). I do think that it is not unreasonable to extrapolate to humans.
However, I do agree with (2), and would further add that it is unknown how much of our evolutionary advantages have come from deviating from "normal" mammalian behaviour. But I would argue that the data strongly suggests that breastfeeding into childhood is not without precedent. I do know there are no studies which demonstrate harm, and one, recently which showed advantages to those breastfed at ages 2-4.

re children breastfeeding at 7 or 8, could they not be late teethers ie, without all their adult teeth? I used the word efficient advisedly, as there will always be an exception, or determined child.