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 know about the 'who cares how a child gets comfort' thing. I mean you wouldn't let them have a comforting bottle or dummy at 5... Most would be starting to discourage thumb sucking at 5...

I don't mind how people feed their kids but don't think that comforting alone is a good reason.

I'm going to get flamed

2shoes - would you consider cows milk to be a nutritious food for a 4yo?

i'm guessing yes - most people do

so human milk, made freshly for that individual child, can only be better, no?

if you find it weird then don't do it but leave others to their own parenting choices - yabu for judging her

2shoes and many others, so many posters have given perfectly valid explanations, which you have chosen to ignore.

To sum up:
1.It is comforting
2.It provides nutrition
3.It would distress the child to stop if they are not ready
4.It is not harmful in any way at all! Overreliance on dummies/bottles may be harmful to teeth. that is why you can't compare it to breastfeeding.

In my experience, people who have found it easy to stop BF are those whose child has always accepted a bottle- the mother just swaps from breast to bottle, and the child doesn't really mind. If you have a child who has never taken a bottle (like my 2yo DD) it would be much harder to suddenly stop BF.

Bottom line- if the child enjoys it and the mum is happy to do it, there is no actual reason to stop! In the same way you wouldn't take a child's favourite teddy/blanket away just because they were 'too old'.

I'd also like to clarify that in the vast majority of cases a toddler/child would only have a feed in the morning and bedtime. Hardly a big deal.

Please can someone explain why they give their children carrots?
Or cuddle them when they're upset?
And why, exactly, they think breastfeeding an oldrr child is wrong? Something they'd not choose to do - fine. But why wrong for other peolple?

Horrible thread to skim over...so much anger and nastiness and rudeness.

Anyway I used to think it was odd to BF a 4yo child, but then the only time I had ever seen it done was by someone who was very odd. That's why it seemed odd.

I breastfed my first child till he was 16 months and the first time he took a bottle...I stopped suddenly after that, not the best thing but I was under pressure. (seems a lot of people do think it's odd, even over a year)

Second child didn't stop of his own accord and refused all attempts to stop from my side of it, so despite my wanting to stop when I kept getting mastitis and was pretty ill, we carried on, the mastitis stopped happening, he carried on until he was four and a half and had just started school.

There were others who secretly told me they still fed at 3-4, no one publicises it...I wasn't militant, just it was the easier option than trying to get him to sleep any other way. I didn't want to feed him in public and rarely have unless he was really upset, and I tried to be very discreet and hide somewhere to do it when that happened.

He only wanted to feed at night for the last year or so.

I'm expecting my third and DP says it'll be bottle fed by two - ha, ha - hmm. I don't know. I think it'll be helpful having him around in terms of getting it to sleep sans lait but we will see.

I'm wondering about the comment earlier about the immune system if anyone has anything on that, please.

"I don't know about the 'who cares how a child gets comfort' thing. I mean you wouldn't let them have a comforting bottle or dummy at 5... Most would be starting to discourage thumb sucking at 5..."

Kayano - I'd agree on the bottle (purely because it's harder to clean and more easily damaged than a cup so pricey) and the dummy (as again it's something that's expensive to continually replace and needs frequent careful washing so easier to do without) but thumb sucking I've never quite understood some people's determination to discourage as their child 'gets too old'.

I do understand there's an issue with teeth being pushed about in regular thumb suckers and the impact of having to correct this but plenty of people have misaligned teeth without thumb sucking so I find this not enough of a problem in itself to stop. I don't admit it in RL because of the social pressure but I still suck my thumb at well past 30 for comfort and find it ludicrous that I'd be seen as immature and weird if I admitted it whereas smoking, overeating and taking drugs (prescription, not illegal) for comfort are seen as 'tolerable and not weird' by society if not even acceptable by many, even though they all have health risks and cost the NHS ££££.

This isn't side tracking from breastfeeding because the issue for me is if the benefits of something far outweigh any risks or downsides then where is the logic of expecting someone to stop doing it? If a child gets enough benefits from bf'ing to want to carry on then there are no downsides that I can see (if the mother is ok with it) so why not carry on? This doesn't mean the child isn't growing up and doesn't have the downsides associated with all the other spurious examples thrown up (staying in a pushchair for years will stop muscle development, not potty training will be incredibly uncomfortable for the child as they get bigger etc).

If parts of society suddenly thought not being the perfect body shape was 'weird' would some of us go on crash diets and harm our bodies, or take masses of chemicals to speed up weight loss, or have unnecessary surgery regardless of the pitfalls just to be 'normal'?...... oh wait. Think people are weird tbh, still breastfeeding or not.

Sexualising breasts to the point when only milk from another species is acceptable past one is a perversion in itself. Especially when the WHO advises to BF a child until two for the full health benefits and the average age of self-weaning is four.

There are a lot of daft statements on this thread but I've seen the idea recur that children have to learn the word no. As if young children don't already hear it about 500 times a day .

It becomes weird when people make an issue of it, get in magazines and on TV and expose their DC to negative comment.

I breastfeed my DD until she was 4.5. I really wished I hadn't stopped recently when she had a bad viral infection and hardly ate, as previously when she has been ill, she had breastfed. This is also the longest she had been ill, which may or may not be a coincidence.

In answer to your question OP, it never becomes weird. It's ok to bf for as long as you and the child want to.

I can never understand why people care so much about something someone else is doing. I couldn't give a toss how other people feed their children. I bf mine because it's important to me and I feel it's the best thing for them. I don't expect other people to care and certainly not comment on something which has absolutely nothing to do with them.

The article in question used bf to produce an eye catching front cover. It's done bf no favours at all.

Exoticfruits, the only people making an issue of it are those making all the 'disgusted' comments about the picture. I think the picture in Time has been a great starting point for opening up the debate, and exposing the inadequacy of the 'it's just weird' argument.

Shakewhatyourmamagaveyou- re the pureed mush comment- my 4yo still eats Readybrek for breakfast. She is also partial to a Petit Filous. Both foods she ate as a baby- should I stop her because it is 'baby' food?

Exoticfruits, the only people making an issue of it are those making all the 'disgusted' comments about the picture. I think the picture in Time has been a great starting point for opening up the debate, and exposing the inadequacy of the 'it's just weird' argument.

Shakewhatyourmamagaveyou- re the pureed mush comment- my 4yo still eats Readybrek for breakfast. She is also partial to a Petit Filous. Both foods she ate as a baby- should I stop her because it is 'baby' food?

The picture has damaged any hope to promote breast feeding and the poor DS will live with the image for ever- things don't disappear on the Internet. I would never put my DC in the public eye.

The woman was an attention seeker putting her issues above her DC - that is what is weird.

I bf my dd for 14 months and was getting comments towards the end which was sad. I stopped because she decided to, not because of what anyone said though.

Lots of people put their children in the public eye- whether it's child modelling, celebrities like Jordan and Peter Andre, newspaper articles, magazines, people sending in birthday cards to Cbeebies with their child's picture on. I think putting kids in the public eye is a different issue.

I suspect that little boy will be fine as he is being brought up in a family where extended BF is nothing to be ashamed of! Personally I think it's a great picture and anyone who feels uncomfortable with it needs to examine their own attitudes towards women/the sexualisation of breasts used for their natural purpose.

I'm breastfeeding my 21mo Dd, and I don't have one single reason to stop, no a one!

I could breastfeed so ff and had raised eyebrows and comments when dc was small. A good friend had a baby at the same time and bf. she is still bf now at about a year and now it is her that gets the raised eyebrows and comments. It makes me cross on her behalf and I wish people would just leave people to feed their babies as they see fit! Every situation is different and people are just trying to do what's best for their own family.

its funny the people getting arsey that say it doesn't matter would freak out in a hearteat if they met the inlaws and a 30 year old man sat on his mums lap and sucked her tits.

yes it does get weird at somepoint abd irregardless of what people say to try to be open minded it is usually acceptable up to the age of 3 at the latest before everyone thinks your absolutely crazy.

After 2 for me.

I've never met any mother who breastfed a child of three plus who wasn't 'of a type' and whose children, sadly, weren't also a little odd.

Why do we never get this question about ff? Toddler milks are marketed at 2-3 year olds, well past the age of bottles and solids and thats fine, a marketed, bottled, expensive product, but a 3 year old still bf causes all kinds of 'discussions'

Flitty
Yes I know at least 4 people who have feed into toddlerdom and beyond.

I know this because they also happen to be close friends and family.

No one advertises the fact they carry on feeding, but I strongly suspect a great many do.

I'd love to be able to take my articulate, bright DD on national TV to tell it like it is, but she wouldn't do it.

Society has made her ashamed of the most natural and beautiful process. I've never had to tell her not to feed in public. From before she was 2 she just didn't.
She instinctively knew it wasn't the done thing and that's

Also given her social awareness it tells you how important BF was to her that she carried on. For DD2 to do anything faintly embarrassing or eccentric is normally absolutely unheard of.