To think their is NOTHING wrong with extended breastfeeding or wet nursing?

[Thisisaname]

Look at the comments below

I was researching extended breastfeeding and came across this.
I see nothing wrong with this, I wouldn't be 'scared' for life if I could remember being breast fed or found out I was given someone else's milk.
I think the only 'scarring' would come from going from the natural environment of being fed from something to then finding out a large majority find it sexual, not the actual feeding itself.

Btw, what happened to the daily mail journalist OP?

Sorry, I had refreshed after Antipag's last comment!

Had NOT. See, Bfing is also bad for one's typing

antipag it was supposed to be wanking!

thumbs he never tolerated a napkin! I think he must've started weani g himself on toast crumbs at 8 weeks.

I think there really is a perception that 6 months is all youhave to do. I thought that. The teeth thing scared me. Then dd got teeth at16 weeks, so I got over it. Then the asking for it was my next worry. Then 'schlurp, ugga shide' became my favourite phrase.

I'm not technically British though, soooo

The 'op' is desperately trying to formulate this into

'Militant Mums March on Mammary Misuse'
It will be written in such a way that will judge those who do breastfeeding beyond 6 months & those who choose to ff whilst still making bf icky. It will have a photo dragged from the archive of some saggy old lentil weaver. It will run next to a banner article about a Kardashian in a piece of dental floss asking if she's too thin/fat/happy/sad etc

babiesinslingsgetcoveredinfood

You are misquoting The WHO recommendations.

Here they are (cut and pasted)

Exclusive breastfeeding is recommended up to 6 months of age, with continued breastfeeding along with appropriate complementary foods up to two years of age or beyond.

That means exclusive BF up to 6 months and then BF up to (note, it does not say until) two years or beyond

The WHO will have taken a lot of care over these recommendations. They are quite vague but I bet their vagueness is very deliberate.

Dont worry, you are in good company, they have been misquoted a lot on this thread.

Those who think other mammals only have milk in infancy: have you seen lambs in summer? They go to suckle from their mothers and practically push her into the air because they're nearly the same size and are struggling to get their heads underneath.

There are plenty of good arguments to support EBF but comparing humans to mammals isn't one of them. I don't know, but i wonder if humans are the only mammal to allow their babies to decide when to stop feeding.
Mother dogs and cats forcibly push their offspring away when they decide it's time to wean their babies.

Mother dogs and cats forcibly push their offspring away when they decide it's time to wean their babies.

I guess if nature took its course this would happen once the child's latch became insecure and uncomfortable when the milk teeth came loose.

DontEvenThink, I am really confused about the way you are interpreting the WHO guidelines. I don't think they are vague at all.

Exclusively breastfeeding up to 6 months= nothing but breastmilk until a baby is 6 months old
Continue alongside complementary food up to the age of 2 years= breastmilk and solids until a child is 2 years old
and beyond= longer if you fancy it

This is the meaning taken by HCPs and breastfeeding organisations across the world, I'm not sure why you're getting a different meaning from it. The WHO wouldn't use the phrase 'up to' to mean two different things in one sentence and they wouldn't set a limit of two years and then say you could go beyond it if you like. The 6 months and two years recommendations are NOT limits. They are targets.

This is from the book Breastfeeding Answers Made Simple which is used by HCPs and breastfeeding counsellors-

"Research has found that children weaned between 16 and 36 months have more types of illness, longer duration of illness, and require more medical care than breastfeeding children the same age (Gulick, 1986). Also, weaned children between 12 and 36 months were 3.5 times more likely to die than those still breastfeeding (Molbak, 1994). No matter where a child lives, weaning before age 2 is associated with greater incidence of illness and death."

If you want to look up those references, they are-
Gulick, E (1986) The effects of breastfeeding on toddler health Pediatric Nursing, 12, 51-54
Molbak, K (1994) Prolonged breastfeeding, diarrhoeal disease, and survival of children, BMJ, 308, 1403-1406

I'm sure the risk of death in developed countries is tiny, but improved infant health is the reason for the WHO's recommendations.

As for mothers pushing their offspring away, of course that happens with humans too. It's part of natural weaning. I have 'geroff' moments with my DDs. It's not a sudden 'you are weaned now' denial, just something that mothers do when their children are particularly wriggly or rough, which happens as they get older.

Of course it's natural to feed children as long as they want to feed for. Bfing primary age children is unusual, but then formal education starts very young in this country

Thanks for that evidence EauR, will be copying and pasting in to my notes folder for future reference with a judgemental family member...

I glad I've read this thread (lurked and posted earlier about feeding a toddler earlier) as many of you have it have reassured me that what I'm doing is natural. Just from reading the thread and reading real life experiences, I feel confident in my decision to feed DD until he is ready to stop. So thank you to those of you who have shared a story/evidence/experiences.

I had a 12 month 'target' in my head but that came and went and now, at 18 months, the thought of 'weaning' her off breast milk seems far too much effort when it gives her so much comfort at certain times of the day.

If people want to bring bloody mammals into the equation, then they must also include the fact of life span: cats live, what - 18 yrs maximum? And a human female, let's say 80 average lifespan. If you're going to be daft enough to say, look, cats kick their kittens off the nips at a young age, then you have to include the comparitive lifespan factor and realise that those kittens are probably the equivalent of a 5 yr old human, perhaps less, perhaps more.

But bringing what other species do into the argument is daft, full stop. A lot of animals eat their own shit, should we follow their lead on that?!

Great post, Fadbook Like a lot of us have said, there's no doubt a whole lot more kids BFing beyond, say, 18 months, but the stigma means they keep it private (also, at that age, they can go longer without feeding or wanting to when they're out and about, so there's much less need to BF in public. Athough you should if you want and need to, obviously).

Can I share a nice personal experience of nursing? My gran is really old, nearly 100, and she's going a bit senile, poor love, but what she adores is to see Ds Bfing, always has. She says it makes her really happy and calm that life goes on as she reaches the end of hers and she drifts into a blissful reverie remembering EBFing her own 3 children. Me, Ds, her and Mum often sit on the sofa, with him playing or nursing, 4 generations enjoying a wonderfully happy and peaceful time thanks to Bfing. It feels timeless.

tucks into poo poo platter

What do you mean we shouldn't follow them Oxford?

5madthings - I love the assumption that 'he really should be eating solids now' - like all he ate was milk? And you can't have enough milk for both of them? Twins, triplets anyone??

Do other mammals have milk teeth which they lose for adult teeth?

I really wish I'd tried harder to BF longer than 8 months. Stupid PND.

eauR quite. I think that they are clear. dint ebmventbi k (apt?) appeared to be picking on semantics.

I know visualize like a massive two yr old was going to be exclusively bfed! The consultant seemed to have no clue that a child could in fact eat solids and still be bfed!! And yes twins, triplets etc... There us a shameful lack of knowledge about bfeeding amongst some medical professionals.

There are also the doctors who don't realise that pregnancy resets the VF clock to the age of the youngest baby, so the argument about having BF 'too long' so the younger child won't get the right milk is wheeled out fairly regularly despite being wrong.

So I did keep BFing for reasons that were as much to do with me as DD. That was between the ages of 4 months and 8 months when I didn't want to stop because I was suffering PND and BFing was the only 'good' time I got with her. Don't get me wrong, she didn't object, but it was clear that I was doing it for me too.

Because of that I am always a little worried about my motivations for carrying on now she is 20 months. In fact last weekend I thought I would try and not mention the milk and see if she seemed spontaneously interested. DD made no mention of it but once she realised she was in to the final phase of bed preparation and hadn't had her milk she went crazy. Scratching me, pulling at my clothes and even once we got set she was sobbing and glaring all the way through. The next day she demanded milk at lunch time for the first time in months.....

It certainly seems like it is something she wants and not something that I am just doing for myself! But threads like this sow the seeds of doubt.

ICIBINEG Please don't let the seeds of doubt take root, there is nothing wrong in what you are doing, you can not force your child to continue BF, if it helps you feel confident in your choice you might consider adopting a 'don't offer, don't refuse' approach. Well done to you for continuing to feed through PND, it might have had benefits for you but that doesn't mean it was a selfish thing to do. It was the BEST thing to do for you both

I've done don't offer, don't refuse for the last four weeks. Dd has cut down more during the day, but makes up for it at tea time, bedtime and morning!

I like the idea of don't offer, don't refuse....but I still worry that one might subconsciously influence a child to continue. I often can't help grinning all over my face when DD is BFing...especially as at the moment she has a habit of putting each finger in turn up for a kiss and also turning my head from side to side as if trying to picture me from all angles. (less grinning like a loon when she decides to stick fingers up my nose but hey ho). She is such an active fraught toddler, always on a mission to do something, be somewhere and I can't help valuing the small amount of quite calm time...

I think I am scarred by a documentary I saw about a child skiing champion. The dad was all 'oh no it's not for me...it's him that wants to do all this' and yet the footage basically showed that every time the kid questioned carrying on the dad launched into a passive aggressive tirade..'no no it's fine, I mean why bother, if you don't like it then lets all just stay in bed in the mornings. Let's just sleep in and do nothing with our lives...blah blah blah.' And then when the kids conceded that he would like to carry on the dad was all, 'see it's just his dream to be a skier!' Just fecking ghastly.

Anyway, my point if I have one is that just because you can't force a child to BF doesn't mean the parent isn't influencing things.

I hate looking down at DD and feeling how wonderful it is to spend that time with her (plus or minus scratching and nose poking) and then remembering that it makes me (and her) an outlier in the eyes of UK society....I try to focus on the fact that it is normal in the eyes of the global society!