to ask why there is so much negativity breastfeeding over 1s?

[rollerbladersrule]

DS is still breastfed, he is 13 months so it is not often, just on waking, to go to bed and sometimes once in the day for a nap or if feeling poorly.

I didn't aim to breastfeed longterm and my initial goal was to atleast get to 6 months but it just worked for us and it is now a lovely comfort and I also enjoy it, I am the only one left amongst baby group friends but their babies (same age) have formula or cows milk in its place at the same times DS would have a feed. Everytime feeding is raised in conversation one will ask "when will you stop" "Does he still need breastmilk" "he will be too old soon".

I find this odd when it comes from mothers also still giving their babies milk and most give a bottle rather than a cup so they are doing practically the same but I would never dare ask if they are too old for milk or too old for a bottle.

My DM asks me regularly if he still needs to be breastfed and how "unnecessary" it is now and she is convinced it is why he is clingy (I'd say more because it has just been him and I since he was very young -single parent) and says it is bad for his teeth.

I don't understand the negativity, I know its a choice that some may not be comfortable with but if a child has cows or formula milk it isn't questioned its just dropped when the child is ready.

I think my ds would have breastfeed forever but I wanted to try for another baby and still didn't have my periods back. My ds was 14 months and was eating loads so was only wanting a feed to go to sleep or for comfort in the night. Although he never would have turned one down. I taught my ds to sleep for his naps without one at first, then to go to bed and then he stopped waking in the night and stopped asking for it.

If your family and friends are judgemental I just wouldnt tell them. People are funny about toddlers breastfeeding particularly if they are fully weaned and eating well but you need to be assertive about your choices. If that's what you want to do then do it and don't discuss it with others.

@Temporaryanonymity It's interesting that your son stopped naturally at 7. I made my DD stop just before her 6th birthday as I was fed up (had been for a while) and I didn't think she would ever stop naturally! Well done for seeing it through till its natural end.

...seven?

3, even 4 is fine, I don't think that's weird. But seven?!

I bf my DD until she was 2yrs 5 months, I didn't let her wean naturally I told her my boobs were broken. She was a bit put out the first night but absolutely fine the next. I decided to stop because I wasn't convinced she was getting anything other than comfort from it and I was tired of seeing my nipples being stretched like bubble gum.
The people who were negative -to my face- about extended bf were all on her dads side, inc her dad.

I think it's down to lack of education as well as all the stigma. My DS is still BFing at 2 1/2. The negative comments started before he got to 1 year. I just tell people that the WHO recommends that all babies are BF until at least the age of 2, and that our country has such atrocious breastfeeding rates that anyone who follows the correct medical advice seems unusual.

Now he's older than 2 I don't have a good, concise comeback - usually I ramble a bit about how he's being stubborn but gradually cutting down, and that it still has immune system benefits and he hardly ever gets bad colds so it must be doing some good!

Yeah, 7. Not really weird. Just how it happened.

It's interesting how everyone has their own arbitrary cut off points.
Saying 7 is weird is actually very rude and thoughtless. A child who chooses to feed until 7 is not weird.

It's crazy that people have such a problem with bf over 1 years old. I'm currently bf DS who's 6 months & totally happy to keep going now, although I've already had comments about teeth and how weird that is.

On a side note - I'm going back to work when he's 1... those of you who've bf when back at work, I'm assuming it just works that you bf in morning/ evening? Slightly concerned as weaning, while only 3 weeks in is going slowly to say the least so worried he won't be eating enough by time I go back to work? He's never taken a bottle

Nah. You're not telling me seven is normal. I can't be the only one reading that and thinking wtf

People who FF also get defensive about their choice as it's hard to avoid the "breast is best" message but people don't like to admit they chose something that wasn't the best choice for their child necessarily.

I wonder if this has a lot to do with it, I have a 'friend' (old school friend who had her baby in the same month as mine), I bumped into her when her baby was a few days old and she told me she was FF because her milk hadn't come in the day after birth and he was hungry. I think we both knew she just didn't want to BF which is a valid choice but not many say like that, there is normally "I couldn't BF because..." followed by a small hurdle that most BF mothers face.

With the regards to the finding it weird because they are crawling/pulling at tops etc. I don't know if DS is in the minority but this has never happened, he feeds to sleep, sometimes for a nap and sometimes if hes feeling poorly but I initiate when I sense thats what he wants/needs rather than the other way around.

I'm not really upset by comments and I will continue to feed aslong as we both want to but just don't understand the stigma. When talking about it the other day (with a mother of a baby 2 months older) I didn't get the logic by her child needing a dummy and not being too old but mine being too old for the breast when a dummy is really designed around the nipple and the natural want for a baby to suckle.

I guess it's just not the norm because lots of women have to go back to work after a year, and most jobs are incompatible with continued breastfeeding.

It might be that there's less of a 'stigma' (hesitant to use that word as I'm not sure whether there is really a stigma) in countries where women are less likely to work.

Sorry I meant to say - not the norm in this country.

Breastfeeding rates in the UK are apparently the worst in the world.

0.5% are still breastfeeding at one year!

Emily care to explain exactly why it’s weird and ‘not normal’?

There is no such thing as normal. Calling a child weird is rude. Sorry if I sound abrupt by the way. I have a terrible cold and a thick head today

"I was tired of seeing my nipples being stretched like bubble gum"

Lol

Well I worked part-time and still was feeding my over one year old. Eventually I did wean him off, but it took about a month of being strict, especially at bedtime. (and much guilt because he didn't take to kindly to me saying no). It had nothing to do with anyone else's opinions on the matter. I was verging on desperate by then but no one was judgemental, only sympathetic.

I know lots of two years olds still going, mine included, although only at bedtime and I am working on stopping...

I think most kids gradually stop wanting/needing in daytime or out and about, so there's really no reason for anyone to know and obviously it doesn't get the exposure (!) that feeding newborns in public does.

Given that BF rates are so low here, the likelihood of coming across someone who hasn't done it - and therefore may not understand - is pretty high, but it's sad that, as with so many other things, people can be so openly judgemental about it.

I've fed one to 4.5, one to 3 and the third is still going at recently turned 2.

'Weird' is only ever in the eye of the beholder. I think it would have felt strange for one of mine to be bf at 7, but I guess it wouldn't if for whatever reason they had gone on that long. As it was, they were both ready to stop, had tailed right off in frequency, the writing was on the wall with the 4.5yo when I offered him a feed when he was ill with fever (always a failsafe comfort previously) and he said no. I didn't exactly expect to go on that long either, but I am incredibly glad I did and am now very open to going on for however long no. 3 wants to (and it's still OK for me).

I don't think there's anything physiologically outside the norm about a 7yo bf, and everybody has different stages at which they are comfortable with different steps towards independence. Because we are paranoid very concerned about children being out and about on their own these days, we're perfectly happy to accept a 10yo saying they don't feel comfortable with going down the road to the shop, even though the typical 10yo is more than capable of doing so and many do, because that supports the current cultural tendency to keep children's movements on a tight and supervised leash. But a 'young' 7yo who still wants to bf is 'weird'.

I don't agree pigface after 1 you can just feed in the morning before work and then when you get home. It's much harder to BF and work at the younger ages when it's necessary to express and they have to take bottles.

Oh and totally ignore the 'how do you get to a year and are still feeding your baby' nonsense. Just ignore and accept all hand holds.

You will, if you want, stop this in your own time.

I only did it with DC4. My aunt said something like "you'll give him solids as well, won't you?" He'd been BLW from 6 months. Someone complained about me feeding too close to him in a pub and got us barred. We were with a huge group of people who went there every 6 weeks, we now go somewhere else! 😂

I breastfeed my two until they self-starter, and I did find that I got loads of comments from around 9-15 months, because that was when most people around me chose to stop breastfeeding, so it was sort of expected. Once it was clear that I was going to keep on breastfeeding for longer, nobody really cared. It's sort of like when a woman gets married in her late twenties or early thirties people keep on expecting her to get pregnant.

Self-esteem.

Gah! Self-weaned!