Breastfeeding a toddler when there is no milk - AIBU?

[EverythingIsAwesome]

I am a member of a FB page for mums, it is a little bit Netmumsy (lots of huns etc).

Today there is a picture of a mum breastfeeding her toddler. Except she says that stopped breastfeeding ages ago, and she is just letting him suck on her for comfort.

AIBU to find this weird? I feel I probably am, and cant understand why I find it a bit "off". But I do. I breastfed my own children to toddlerhood, so it's not that.

I have told the odd few people that I bf a 5 year old. I think I must have a sixth sense for it because they usually turn out to be doing the same. It's definitely far more common than we'd guess.

I guess there must be a biological benefit to me bfing for this long. I've no idea if there has been for my boys in natural term bfing. My elder one denies ever doing it but I do remember him proudly showing his newborn brother what to do.

oscar- homo sapien babies- like all higher primates have evolved to have a fairly lengthy nursing period.
Historically and globally babies breastfeed for years, not months.

Yanbu....

I find that extremely odd.

"Don't you have other things to do besides nursing?" oscar- toddlers are not feeding like newborns, most toddlers will be nursing only once or a couple of times a day- so plenty time to do lots of other things.

Oscar, it's merely minutes after a bedtime story. I'm not walking around 24 hours a day with a 5 year old strapped to my boob.

Llareggub

I can't be arsed anymore to 'protect' friends from the dreadful fact that I still breastfeed DS2, who will be 4 by the end of the year. TBH I think a fair few of them have me down as a benign hippyish attachment type and therefore it goes with the territory. The rest of my friends... are still feeding their toddlers. won't understand' - dad, too. (not that they get the casting vote!

I was rather desperate to stop feeding a few months ago but have since relaxed a bit - it really is about 5 mins at bedtime, the little bugger doesn't even go to sleep afterwards unless he's really whacked! He sometimes uses a PECS card to ask me for a feed and I'll oblige because he's meant to be learning how PECS and communication work. (He mostly uses the 'chocolate' PECS card though .)

So no, it is not, ever, for my sole benefit. But every time I hear that old chestnut trotted out against natural-term breastfeeding, I want to reply - 'And what the actual fuck is wrong with a mother getting some maternal comfort from, in her turn, comforting her child?' It's a reciprocal thing. I can feel all touched-out, but if it helps DS2 calm down or make him less sad or scared, or help him get ready to go to sleep, then dammit, I'll get comfort from that, as well as him!

It's because people think that you're "making them a baby" or some such bollocks. As though you can keep stuffing them into a babygro and they'll stay small and cuddly but with deformed roots like a bonsai tree. They grow up regardless, you know.

Sorry, keeping them a baby. Because mothers need to be needed and get all clingy to their babies and being at all attached to your baby means that you're one of these smothering mums. Because it's all smothering. Of course.

I don't know, IMO smothering is more never letting them out and not letting them do anything in case it's dangerous, making them afraid of the world and generally putting all of your emotional needs on them by telling them that mummy is sad when you . ie, EMOTIONAL ABUSE. Not breastfeeding. Absolutely nothing to do with breastfeeding, or sleep, or parenting method in any way. Other cultures "baby" their children for far longer than ours do and they grow up just fine as well. Some spoon feed until about seven years old (not exaggerating, literally seven) and their children manage to grow up and use cutlery. Children grow up whether you want them to or not and whether you breastfeed them or not or until 34 (impossible, anyway) has nothing to do with it.

I mean, even if you could breastfeed an adult child, would it mean that they hadn't grown up? Not really. They'd still be an adult. It's a bizarre argument.

I find it extremely weird. YANBU.

I was spoon fed until 7/8, my mum wanted to get calories in me, as I just woukdent eat. I'm fine and eat just fine, using proper cutlery. I am spoon feeding dd 7.5 years who has ASD, as she will not eat. She can eat herself, gets bored after a few spoonfuls and wanders off.