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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be glad I can't remember being breastfed?

410 replies

retrocutie · 28/05/2015 15:16

I just read this article in the, erm, Daily Mail. In it, a woman who is breastfeeding her 5 year-old and 2 year-old talks of her wish to still be breastfeeding when her kids are 10 years old. This makes me feel a bit uneasy. A child of 10 will remember being breastfed and I just think it is a bit yucky. Sorry. I am glad I wasn't still breastfed at that age. Some children are going through puberty at 10… I dunno, it just seems a bit, well, wrong somehow. At some point it becomes inappropriate, surely?

Not only that, but as is often the case in these families, the poor husband has been banished to the spare room so that the mother can co-sleep with the DC. Just seems a bit unfair. I feel more than a bit sorry for him.

AIBU?

OP posts:
leedy · 28/05/2015 15:54

Maybe they borrowed it as some kind of prop. You know those extended breastfeeding mothers, it's all about them, sure they don't care what toddler they're feeding as long as they're breastfeeding, etc. :)

PomeralLights · 28/05/2015 15:54

ODFOD.

'Banished' my arse. If he's anything like my DH he just loves a solid 8hrs sleep without wriggling others in the bed.

Currently in our society a married couple sharing a double bed and the children in their own rooms is the norm. It hasn't always been thus. It is likely it will change again in the future.

There is nothing like having a baby (I've found) to kickstart your 'this is MY way of doing things' button.

And let's all bear in mind which paper this is from Hmm they are not really the types to say 'yay! Breastfeeding!' In any other context, are they?

Just more fucking mum-bashing while 'poor' dad doesn't make any decisions. It's all patriarchal bullshit and more shame on you for not seeing through it.

PenguinBollards · 28/05/2015 15:57

round of applause for Pomeral Star

Feminine · 28/05/2015 15:59

I breastfed my daughter till she was three.
My youngest son till two.
My eldest son for a year.
I cast a spell on my husband so he couldn't venture in to our bed.

PenguinBollards · 28/05/2015 16:01

But Feminine, how did you magically conceive your 2nd & 3rd DCs if your poor husband was banished?!

leedy · 28/05/2015 16:01

I BF DS1 til he was 2.5, his brother was conceived when he was just 2 and still sleeping in our room.

Obviously I got pregnant via the intervention of the holy spirit and in no way is it possible for a BF mother to "do it", certainly not in a location other than a bed.

leedy · 28/05/2015 16:02

I'd say Feminine was like me. Conceived by supernatural means. And did not in any way shape or form have sex on the couch in the front room.

MrsGentlyBenevolent · 28/05/2015 16:03

I have said it before, and will so again (and I know will get told off for thinking this way, but there we go). I do not understand those who continue breastfeeding beyond the toddler years. I don't think it's a child's attachment issue, I think its the parent's, especially in this case. Yes, there might, possibly be a positive health aspect to it but nothing major has been proven. Of course, I'm only expressing an opinion, and wouldn't go 'on a rant' to anyone I knew who chose to bf a child beyond early childhood. Just seems unnecessary to me. Using the gorilla analogy is strange as well. In the wild, animals have to utilise every natural resources given to them. Humans don't, it's a choice to keep breastfeeding a child until they 'naturally wean themselves'.

stargirl1701 · 28/05/2015 16:03

What Pomeral said. I was going to report this thread, OP, for being goady but her rebuttal is brilliant.

PacificDogwood · 28/05/2015 16:04

Well, I cannot remember ever having been bottle fed.

How many children do you know who still drink from a bottle with teat when they are 10?
Exactly.

Really a non-issue.

I don't understand why anybody, never mind a paper (I use the word loosely) would worry about how/what/how long somebody choses to feed their children Confused

And wrt the 'banished' DH: I know families who co-slept/had baby in a moses basket/bed side cot/in their own room from the start/employed a night nanny. They all breast fed or bottle fed. It had nothing to do with how they slept.

I did what I did.
Other people do different things.
Who bloody cares?! As long as it works for everybody involved.

ollieplimsoles · 28/05/2015 16:04

*Naturally I feel left out when it comes to the sleeping situation. I feel like it restricts mine and the children's time together and it doesn't give me the chance to do things that I would like to, such as reading bed time stories.'

Nevertheless, he says he will continue to put up with the situation 'for now' and is impressed by Tara's intelligence.

'Tara is an extremely bright girl and is very grown up for her age,' he adds. 'So for now I will continue to allow it.'*

Feels like it restricts his time with his children, and this article seems to be about the intelligence of children breastfed longer, but with DM undertones of 'should she really be doing it for this long?'

PenguinBollards · 28/05/2015 16:05

My second child was magicked into my womb by mystical beings, as I was still breastfeeding my first. And my husband had to live in the garage. I wouldn't even allow him across the threshold (literally and metaphorically Wink).

DisappointedOne · 28/05/2015 16:06

I do not understand those who continue breastfeeding beyond the toddler years.

I'm sure they don't need you to.

NinkyNonkers · 28/05/2015 16:06

Banishing of the husband? Never happened here. Why the assumption that the husbands are uninvolved parents having decisions foisted on them?

PenguinBollards · 28/05/2015 16:08

'Get told off'

Ermmm, yeah - go stand in the corner with your hands on your head and don't come back until you're really really sorry Hmm

NinkyNonkers · 28/05/2015 16:08

Besides, at 3 upwards in my experience they don't feed often anyhow.

DisappointedOne · 28/05/2015 16:09

"There is plenty of research to show that the more you push children away in the early years – using formula, making them sleep alone, not holding them all the time, etc. – the tighter they cling, the less socially independent and gregarious they are. Only when the mother provides a stable, secure base that the child knows he can retreat to when necessary, is the child free to explore and become more independent. Although it may seem counterintuitive to some, children who are nursed for several years or longer and who co-sleep with their parents are more independent, more socially independent, more gregarious, happier, and healthier."

NinkyNonkers · 28/05/2015 16:09

And it's the FAIL!!!

leedy · 28/05/2015 16:09

"I do not understand those who continue breastfeeding beyond the toddler years. I don't think it's a child's attachment issue, I think its the parent's"

And I don't understand how it's "all about the parents". It's not like I'm forcing DS to breastfeed, I just haven't made a decision to stop - he likes it, he asks for it, it gives him great comfort, it's really helpful when he's sick. I'm not sure how it would benefit either of us to make him stop just because it's "unnecessary". I mean, it doesn't particularly restrict my life (I'm just back from a work trip to London without him, was in New York earlier this month for a week), he hasn't woken up to feed in well over a year, it doesn't take very long, it's kind of amusing/cuddly.

The gorilla analogy was for someone who suggested that no animals in the wild feed their young for years on end - all the great apes do (and do so in captivity, where they have plentiful food).

Devora · 28/05/2015 16:12

Oh really, who cares? If I met someone who was still bf a 10 year old I would be mildly interested in how that worked out, the dynamics socially and at school etc, but I could be distracted from that mild interest pretty easily.

As it is, I've never met a breastfed 10 year old, and I very much doubt anyone on MN ever has. Such a tiny number of children are bf beyond the age of 2, it's really not such a huge social issue, is it?

And, as little as I care about breastfed 10 year olds, I care about 'banished husbands' even less Grin

Mumoftwoyoungkids · 28/05/2015 16:12

God I'd love to have a spouse that wanted to co-sleep and banish me to the spare room! 8 hours sleep all for me! Yippee! I wouldn't mind at all! (I'm a very giving person! Grin )

Feminine · 28/05/2015 16:13

It was all about me when l fed them.
They looked so cool hanging from my naked breast.
It gave me so much attention.
I just lapped it up.

SirVixofVixHall · 28/05/2015 16:13

My younger dd fed until five and a half, she really did not want to stop, and I really didn't mind either way. DC1 had chosen to stop when DD2 was born (although she did regret that later!). She has never had any stick from her friends, it wasn't something she talked about, or wanted to do in front of friends (by that age it was just last thing at night anyway, or if she had really hurt herself or was unwell ). It gave her comfort when she found starting school really hard. She was happy, I wasn't at all bothered what she chose, so there really was no problem for us at all. We still have musical beds most nights but that seems normal anyway for most of the families I know with young or youngish children. Both children remember being breastfed, as a lovely close and loving time. I fail to see how any of this is bad. And I'm so bored of anything to do with breasts, other than them being paraded on billboards in cute bras, is somehow shocking and sexualised. My baby, my toddler, my body, their Mummy. All natural and nice IMO.

Charlotte3333 · 28/05/2015 16:14

I have a friend who breastfeeds her DS1 who is 5. He has a younger sibling so she regularly feeds both at once. The one and only time I've ever given it much thought was when she sat down in the school playground and tandem fed them in front of the other parents/children in the pergola. The eyebrow twitching was at an absolute high that day from the other parents, and I'll admit that however pro-breast I am, I don't think I'd be willing to do that. But he wasn't injured or maimed from it. They're happy, they're fed, they're safe. Not sure what else there is to judge.

Mine stopped well before pre-school age. But if they'd wanted to carry on longer I don't think I'd have stopped them, it's a natural process and much like everything else with children, I tended to let them do it in their own time.

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