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.

but I still worry that one might subconsciously influence a child to continue.

Would it be so terrible if your enjoyment of bfing had a small influence over your DD's choice to continue?

Please forgive me for being so frank but your analogy with the skier in just plain ridiculous. The skiing child could well have been continuing against his will because of the pressure from his father. I don't think in a million years that you could make a child bf in a similar way.

Bfing is good for her and good for you. If you offer and she doesn't want it she'll say no. She wouldn't carry on to keep you happy.

It is actually your job to influence her choices while she is a child. You can't be a parent without imposing your wishes and views on your child and you should never, ever feel guilty about offering a bf to your toddler.

ICB, your posts make me feel quite sad for you. You are allowed to enjoy BFing and get benefits from it too, you know! No mother in the world is such a martyr that if it was a godawful experience each and every time that she would carry on for years in suffering. I know that depression can make you feel selfish and undeserving, but please don't ever feel that BFing your child was or is selfish, or feel guilty for enjoying it.

If the BFing was the only 'good' times for you, then it was 100x the good times for her! Plus, all the other lovely things I know you did for her despite suffering within yourself (even if you couldn't identify them).

Please don't look down at her nursing and feel like an outsider or a freak or whatever. You know that this is a wonderful thing that BOTH of you enjoy (minus the nose-poking... it does stop, honest!) so everyone can go take take a flying jump, frankly! As you say, the majority of the world's mothers feed for longer and all the science on the subject gives you the thumbs-up, so stop worrying and keep on enjoying. And enjoying for your own sake too.

I bloody love BFing. Of course, I get benefits for it. It's not for my benefit, but I benefit from it also. I don't want to speak for others, but when other posters decry the idea of it being for their benefit, I don't think they're meaning they don't also benefit, I think they're just defending themselves against the daft accusations that mothers make older tots nurse purely for their own needs/desires/issues. Other posters, please feel free to tell me I've got you wrong, if I have.

As you know, you cannot force a child, especially an older one to BF. And it sounds like your DD wants to - she was clearly very annoyed with you for witholding it from her that day!

As Goldmandra says, you have to gently and constantly influence your baby and child. We influence them with their sleep and naps, with eating solids, with play, with behaviour and manners inside and outside the home... you name it, we influence it. The very fact that you worry about not placing undue pressure on her that are secretly your needs shows you reslly won't do! People like that man you mentioned have no self-awareness and you clearly do. I'd hate to think you might not BF your DD when she wants to because you convince yourself she want to stop because you feel really unworthy of exercising any influence on her.

You sound like you are a really caring, thoughtful and responsive mum :)

EauRouge

Ok, I think I agree with you.

I have just looked at the NHS guidelines and they are much clearer. I can't seem to cut and paste their recommendations but there is no ambiguity. They have dropped the mention of 2 years though.

I have had another look at the WHO guidelines and I can see what you mean now. It was the up to's that were confusing me but I can now see that they are meant the same way as an until (IYSWIM)

I used to many, many years ago write guidelines to various bits of legislation so I usually think I know what I am doing

When I BF my DC's I followed the current UK guidelines to the letter. I didnt have particularly strong feelings one way or another and it was a simple way to decide. I fed my first two for exactly 1 year and 1day (as I thought it mean to stop on their actual birthdays) and I fed my last DC for 9 months as the guidelines had changed. It worked well for us. I would not have wanted to carry on later than a year but I really, really don't mind what other people do whether it's EBF or BF. I sometimes find the arguments for extended BF a bit silly. If you want to EBF you should just get on with it and tell anyone who objects to get stuffed mind their own buisness.

I do think some of the arguments are spurious at best - but I can totally understand why people feel the need to defend their choice to do so. I wish we could all agree that to feed a child until they naturally stop is fine, to not breastfeed at all is fine, to do so for a shorter period is fine too. Unfortunately once feelings and emotions get involved it doesn't feel as simple as that and hence all the arguments (and some cruel comments :() and justification where really none is needed at all.

Vile. Anyone who says it isn't about the mother has clearly never had a candid conversation with someone who does this. A pro person on these boards told me it excited her sexually. Gross.

Gold and Oxford Yes I realise the skiing kid thing is worlds away! I never meant to imply otherwise. Just that it niggles.

You are of course totally right that I can benefit and enjoy something that is driven by the benefit and enjoyment my DD gets from it!

I think I may have had a wood-trees-wood moment!

Vile. Anyone who says it isn't about the mother has clearly never had a candid conversation with someone who does this. A pro person on these boards told me it excited her sexually. Gross.

Oh well......we must all be the same then

It is people who make this sort of accusation who are gross.

As I mentioned earlier I BF my DC's for a year.

At first I did it mainly for their health but I also did it because it was convenient and helped me lose wieght. I liked the closeness but I felt I would have had equal closeness if I had been Bottle feeding.

After 6 months I still did it for health reasons and because it was a quick and effective way to get to sleep at night. I didn't feed them in the day.
The closeness/comforting side of breastfeeding was not at all important to me after a few months. Does that make me a meany!

I had no reservations stopping them BF at a year. I did it cold turkey and I really don't remember any of them minding. They only took a day or so before stopping asking and really didn't seem to miss it. I certainly didn't miss it.

Oh yes Gold, you're all the same. Bloody cloth-nappy, baby-wearing, extended-breastfeeding, lentil-weaving, unconditional-parenting, co-sleeping, elimination-communication, home-educating, home-birth, hypno-birthing, baby-led-weaning, vegan nutters.

And all the formula-feeders, cry-it-out purists, disposable nappy wearers, puree-feeders from 18 weeks, boys-can't-wear-pink buggy lovers, meat-eaters, forward-facing car-seaters, dummy users, baby in own room from one hour old, back to work within 2 weeks.... You're all the same too.

Did I miss anything out...??

VisualiseAHorse . That is soooooo true.

(I like to think I alright in the middle)

I'm in the middle too - cloth nappies, baby in own room, but co-sleep a lot too, weaned early, done mixed feeding, exclusive BF, formula feeding, baby-wear when I can be bothered. Do a bit of infant potty-training (going quite well). I think most people are in the middle.

I mainly bfed but have formula fed. I co-sleep and use slings. I also use a pushchair and disposable nappies and did home ed for a while. I am also quite strict, hot on manners and insist my children help out around the house.

There is a perception if you bfeed, co.sleep etc that you are a hippy soft touch parent with no boundaries which is ermm not true!

And bfeeding can give sexual arousal, women can also orgasm in childbirth, its not sick or gross. I never found feeding sexual in fact my breasts were a no go are when feeding but dp is more of a leg and bum man anyway

Have to say - always found the hardest part of BF was being sexy in bed with OH, baby cries and then BF baby. Going from sexy to milky in 3 seconds flat is hard on the old brain.
I think a lot of women struggle with finding the thing that 'makes them sexy' useful for feeding their baby too. It is a weird issoo.

Yes nothing turns you off more than having to interrupt sex to deal with a baby!

I have no issue seeing my breasts as sexual now I am non longer feeding and even when feeding I still made the most of them 'looked' wise with clothes etc. I have an hourglass figure and large breasts and do wear clothes that make them look good. I just didn't like involving them in sex whilst feeding. Partly as I had oversupply issues and they leaked everwhere at the slightest touch!

Some people will pay a fortune for leaky boobs during sex 5mad, it seems you have missed your chance at amassing your fortune

Dolomites-what an excellent well rounded view supported by extensive research you have presented. Thank you so much for this helpful load of crap opinion.

Dolomites always pops upon threads like this sooner or later, to dispatch her helpful, informative and unhysterical advice. If she thinks is, it must be FACT.

Mind you, I shouldn't say that - I pulled her up on this in a thread around Xmas time and she tried to tell everyone else on the thread I was part of some sinister pregnancy clique who'd been following her round for years on Mn with a vendetta against her I'll probably be upgraded to the Illuminati for this disagreement with her (twirls finger by ear, makes cuckoo noise ).

Geniune question from someone thats yet to breastfeed so apologies if i have it wrong, but I always thought if you breastfed then you shouldnt drink alcohol, is that true? If so, do the ebf stay tea total for all those years?
Its an interesting thread.

www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/958.aspx?CategoryID=54

You don't have to be teetotal. Many women choose to be, especially when they're breastfeeding tiny babies, which is totally understandable.

I don't drink often. I'll have the very occasional wine with dinner, or a beer with a curry. But then I wouldn't drink any more than that if I wasn't breastfeeding, so it makes no difference to me.

Personally I had a couple of glasses of wine when we went out for a meal or something when I was BF (always white as red made my milk pink , although some women do abstain totally. Alcohol concentrations in breast milk are similar to those in the mothers blood stream, but on the occasions I did want to go out and knew I would be drinking more heavily, I either expressed for the following day or simply refused to feed. There is no need to pump and dump with alcohol.

It's personal choice whether you drink or not. Personally, I say bollocks to being tee-total As they get older you don't need to be so careful about drinking and medication. If they are born with cow's milk protein intolerance they are also likely to outgrow it in toddlerhood.

I drink whilst BF. My 'mantra' is that if I can't look after myself, I can't look after the baby and I used this from the very early days I did drink Guinness and black for 4 nights in a row during the first week on the off the record instruction from a midwife because of low iron and a blood transfusion

So, for me personally a couple of glasses of wine or 1 or 2 vodka and cokes, and I would feed her, but a whole bottle of wine, I'd send DP in to DD with water!

It's an extremely tiny amount of alcohol which gets through to the milk - equivalent to your blood alcohol level (this isn't the same for all drugs - for cannabis for example milk level is 4x blood level, but for alcohol it's 1:1)

So, if somebody was to literally drink your blood, imagine how drunk they'd get off that. Not very :)

This chart is very useful for an estimate. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_level

I did avoid alcohol in the early months as I co-slept and co-sleeping is very dangerous if you've drunk alcohol, but I didn't avoid drinking due to breastfeeding.

Yeah, that vampire that drank my blood last week hardly got pissed at all!