To ask for your thoughts on extended breastfeeding?

[awmamma]

Catching up on Teen Mom UK and watching the bit about Charlie telling Shannon it was weird to still be breastfeeding her 2.5 year old.

Is it really that weird?

Feed as long as mum and child want to and are happy, breast or bottle. I don't have DC but that's my opinion on it

Hi @awmamma and welcome to Mumsnet. I can see that you are new so you probably don’t know that there are lots of threads on this before so you might enjoying searching for and reading them.

I can't really answer that as mine were 3/4 when they stopped feeding!

When I had DC1, the thought of BF her past a year seemed weird but they don't grow into massive toddlers overnight so it didn't feel weird when we got to 2 and 3.

By 2.5, most of the time it was one feed a day at bedtime. Plenty of toddlers still have a bottle at bedtime at that age so I didn't see why it was that different. It's nothing like having a newborn, or even an under 1.

Each to their own, I wish people would stop judging others for extended breastfeeding

I assumed I’d BF DS until he was ready to wean, which I thought would probably be somewhere between 2 and 3. He’s now 11 months old and I can’t stand doing it anymore and will probably wean before he’s 18 months. Hats off to anyone less selfish than me who can keep it up for longer.

I can see that you are new so you probably don’t know that there are lots of threads on this before so you might enjoying searching for and reading them.

I think it’s fine as long as both mother and child are happy with it.

I’m breastfeeding a child who’s about that age. Although mostly just at bedtime and first thing in the morning, so most people probably don’t realise we’re still breastfeeding.

Ah right
Can't be bothered to give you my views op as I'm sure you'd find doing some actual research would be a better way to write your article

Not weird at all. Also no one else's business. Breast, bottle, whatever. Who cares. Breastfeed as long as you like or don't. Why other people think it's reasonable to have an opinion on what a woman does with her own body and her own child is beyond me.

I breast fed DS till he was 3 and a bit

Poor thing does think he'll get to do 'booboo' again when his baby brother or sister is born, so in hindsight it might have been better to stop before getting pg to give him more time to 'forget' about it.

OTOH, DH has terrible excema, and DS has dry skin. The 'I'm itchy' complaints have increased lots since I stopped feeding him so I'm glad I managed so long.

Define extended? 2.5 quite normal to me

I'm not new here at all, but my search function doesn't work on the app and I don't use browser

@hobnobsaremyfave what I'm not a journo. I've been a regular poster here for a long time.

Barren

Yes! This exactly.

No, it's not weird. I admire her a lot, especially as she's so young, and breastfeeding can be really hard work at times.

It's not culturally normal, but it is biologically normal.

It's not 'extended', it's 'breastfeeding to term', or 'natural term feeding'. There's nothing extended about it.

Extended? Shouldn’t it only be called extended if it goes beyond natural biological term? Which is quite a bit older than 2.5 for humans I believe.
It’s no one else’s business how long a mother & child chose to feed for.

It’s not weird, but I could see how someone who hasn’t breastfed or doesn’t have children could find it so. Pre children I kind of assumed it was only for babies of a year or so, but after having DC I realised 2.5 is still very little really.

I used to think it was very weird. I read posts from mothers who breastfed for years and even though they said it was one of those things that just happens bit by bit and doesn't feel weird as it was going on, I still thought it was weird. I breast fed my son for the first year and then it didn't feel weird to feed a 1 year old and figured I'd wean him around 2ish as I still thought it would probably be weird to breastfeed a 3 year old. Then as he reached towards 3 I reasoned that 3 is more baby than child and I'd wean him when he was 3 as 4 was probably a bit weird. As he approached 4 I figured that 4 would still be ok and that even though I thought 5 was weird, if he hadn't weaned himself by then I'd rather adapt my mindset than force him to give up something that clearly was important to him still. At that point he only fed at bedtime and first thing in the morning or if he was sick. And my only problem with breastfeeding him as he got older was my internalisation of our culture's norms the act itself was just something that was totally normal and natural.

He weaned just after his 6th birthday. By 5 and a half he was already close to done. He'd go a couple of weeks at a time without looking for milk and then remember, want it for a few days and then start to forget again. I remember his last feed as he was sick and had been sick for a few days without looking for milk. He asked on the third day and was better the next day and never asked again. When he was still 4 we had picked a special toy for him to celebrate weaning. I didn't mention it when he weaned as I wasn't sure if he was done or not. 3 months after weaning he asked about the toy and I gave it to him and he was done. Once or twice if he's felt unwell he says he wishes he still had milkies as it used to make him feel better and he's pretty miffed that despite the presence of his nipples he will never produce milk for his future babies. But other than that, it doesn't come up.

So extended, or actually full term, breastfeeding is not weird. Once you are doing it, it's normal and natural and feels completely like something that's just a regular daily part of a normal early life. But it's so utterly unusual in our society that even when you are right in the middle of it, it feels like anything beyond what you are doing might be wrong. So I get people think it's weird. I thought it was weird. I'm just glad that it felt normal enough for me to be able to admit I was wrong.

Just do what you want

For the people berating OP's terminology, on Teen Mom UK, Shannon did an advert for national breastfeeding week where she said 'extended breastfeeding is where you breastfeed past 1 year old.'

When I was pregnant I couldn't stand the thought of breastfeeding - i thought it was weird.
Now we're 3 months in and it feels so natural. I don't know how long I'll breastfeed for but it's my body, my choice.

I'm hoping to bf as long as DS wants to, he's not write nine months yet and after a rocky start with it we've really hit our stride, luckily he'll happily have a bottle of expressed so it will work when I'm back at work. I've been watching teen mum and wouldn't consider what she's doing extended, all credit to her wanting to tandem feed I struggled with one. What age is too old though? It must stop somewhere, you don't hear about nine/ten year olds still breast feeding

Teenagers in the UK tend to think of breastfeeding in general as weird/gross.

I'm not trying to generalise, I know there are always exceptions, but I have seen the stats on it and it's quite sad. I watched a documentary with Cherry where she went along to one of the teen mum and baby groups and a lot of the mums there said they felt very judged by fellow teen mums for breastfeeding, to the point where some of them decided not to do it because they were too embarrassed. Their breastfeeding rates are very low.

I think Shannon's doing great, I wish I could have bf my baby! Unfortunately he just didn't latch, we tried for a long time and it wasn't working out

Meh I think it's weird but that's my opinion and I keep it to myself