My blood is boiling at this thread

[chaosisawayoflife]

Warning: contains link to a website full of selfish bridezillas worrying about how a woman breastfeeding at their wedding will ruin the day for them.
here

As I have already said waaaaay back, I am not an Ex bf and it doesnt really appeal BUT to use offensive in relation to bf is very sad.

Ditto disgusting.

Anyway round this way extended bf is anything over two days so I must be one of those hairy tree singing types

so your friend's boyfriend thinks breasts are sexual. ok.... was this some sort of revelation?

and he thinks being breastfed is sexually erotic... well, whatever rocks their boat....

I would be more, shall i say, amazed if you said that your friend's boyfriend was 4 yrs old and...

oh god they're all too thick to waste time on.

Aargh - hamstermummy has outed me - I am a wirey haired old knitting type who sings to trees. Actually - no,if you met me at school or work you would never know,amazingly enough,that I'd been indulging in extended BFing.I am normal,DC's are normal - well,normalish anyway.
It's a parenting choice - people have to do what is best for them and their children,and hopefully let others do the same.No-one laughed at me,probably thought I was odd but so what? It suited our family fine - there are lots of ways build a happy relationship with your children and that was part of ours.Must stop posting here....

Is getting all uptight about extended bfing a sign of uptightness in all sorts of other areas, I wonder? Just a thought...

Jesus Christ. Mothers who bf are more likely to be affluent, well educated and in a stable relationship... this can account for everything attributed to bf. Of my seven friends with PHDs, none of which even suffer hayfever not one was bf past six months and six of them were ff. Quoting research that was carried out in Bangladesh.... I'm struggling to see the relevance???? All the women I know who snap back into jeans within a couple of months are ffders, all bfders are too bloody hungry. Most of the other research quoted is about bf not extended bf.

As for emotional development I cannot see how a bf child gets anymore affection at three than a well cuddled no bottle/breast child.

And intelligence? Absolute rot.

oh it looks like a 6.

hamstermummy, your comments are thick and offensive
"His 'favourite' thing should be something random, like dressing as Sparticus or saugages dunked in mayo."
WTF????? Who are you to tell other people's children what they should enjoy?

"Jesus Christ. Mothers who bf are more likely to be affluent, well educated and in a stable relationship... this can account for everything attributed to bf."

I've said it before and I'll say it again but THIS HAS BEEN ACCOUNTED FOR. Read about research methods PLEASE. and don't say it's impossible to do - most people now accept the link between smoknig and lung cancer so think about that first. Please. Please.

sorry, second comment was by posieparker, who is disagreeing with my opinion in what I consider to be a reasonable non insulting way. Didn't mean to include that with the troll.

IOnttelligence?

methinks so

Well maybe not but happiness? In my family yes. Not a lot else matters,certainly not the concerns of several people I have no particular interest in.

Ciao

stealthpolarbear I'm an extended bfer and am thoroughly pro, but I just wondered how the researchers factored out the middle class factor. I've wondered that before, and can understand posieparkerinChina's point.

laga - I don't know a lot about it, but there are different types of scientific studies, randomised controlled trials, which in this case (if I have it right) would involve taking a large number of newborns and randomly assigning some of them to be breastfed and some formula fed.
There are also cohort studies, where you take a huge number of people who have one thing in common (say year of birth, or probably in this case month and year of baby's birth) and follow up their activities and health outcomes.
I think careful analysis of other data (other than whether they breastfed) and careful understanding of what you're trying to prove (cause and effect) in a cohort-type study would be the way this was done. Happy to be corrected - in fact I'd love to know more about this stuff in general!

What annoys me though, is that it's generally accepted that smokers lead less healthy and for want of a better word privileged lifestyles than non-smokers and yet no-one ever argues for the dangers of cigarette smoking being overstated!

Well, yes, but I suppose they did in the past, so maybe it's only a matter of time. [overly optimistic emoticon]

I have to say that this thread is quite surprising to me. No one ever challenged me about bfing DD when she was bigger and it never occured to me that anyone would care at the time. I honestly can not see why it would be anyone elses business. And if she fed she did so in the same way as she did when tiny which was snuggled up to me - most people glancing would really struggle to see anything other than a hug going on.

I am mildly surprised that anyone who is a) female and b) under 60 would have any issue with it at all. But anyone having an issue wouldn't really bother me as I would just assume they were a bit stupid and possibly a little uneducated and/or unworldly.

I am not especially worried about DD being shunned by her school mates as they are all quite bright and I think the notion of her being socially ostracised is pretty unlikely too. She does OK socially I think she/we will manage without the kind of people who would regard it as weird. We are pretty selective - DS2 sees to that

I find it amazing that the bride is being castigated for wanting to set aside a room for this mother to breastfeed. I have read so many threads on here about children not being invited to weddings, where the general feeling seems to be 'her day, her choice', yet when a bride includes young children in her day, she is somehow in the wrong for trying to be considerate to all her guests sensibilities, not just the mother who is breastfeeding! Another case of MN double standards methinks!

"im also a big believer in breat feeding but like pikelet said, breastfeeding babies, not children old enough to be in nursery school. id say breastfeeding any child at a wedding is inappropriate unless its in the restrooms or other private place. im not a prude either but a wedding is not a random family picnic."

good thing my family don't think like that or my cousins' speeches would have been to the accompliment of a screaming 5 month old

and what is a wedding reception if it's not a family meal together to celebrate the joining of two families? are the youngest members of the family excluded from that?

fair deuce to the OPs nemesis though.... i chickened out of public feeding at 18 months as i couldn't be aresed fighting my corner any more and ds1 wasn't overly pushed about daytime feeds.

HAmstermummy - you are very offensive and sadly very poorly informed about breastfeeding and those who do it.
I bf ds till 4 and dd till 3.
I wouldnt have bf at a wedding at that age. I would have had no need to.
If I'd had a note asking me to feed elsewhere I'd not have gone to the wedding tbh as I would have been insulted that you'd think I might bf during the ceremony.

I couldnt give a toss about what the other guests thought.

must add posieparker to my list of someone who knows f all about bf and those who do it too.

Slight tangent here but I am a little upset.

Why is there this bloody assumption that only middle class mums bf? Its insulting and makes no sense.

I know that its not the general consensus of this thread (but it has come up so I am taking advantage to get on my high horse) but its something I have come up against over and over again during my 17 years as a mum.

I am working class. I left school at 15. I have been a single mum (me and OH back and forth for years), we have always been a low income family, I have spent most of my parental life in council accomadation.

I bf all my birth children and never considered doing anything else. Many of the HCPs I have encountered have assumed I ff. Some have expressed almost comical suprise that I bf and one even asked me 'are you sure?'

That last comment came during my booking in appt with HV when I had DS3 18 mths ago.

I understand that there are low rates of bf in my area. I wonder how much of it is down to the low expectations placed on working class families?

Yes I own three velour trackies, yes I have a little dog that I carry in a moody gucci bag, yes I talk a bit like a docker when riled, yes my children are mixed race and have 'unusual' names - but I know where my tits are and what they are for.

Huffy, ranty, rant, huff.

sorry chegirl but pmsl at "are you sure"!! What did she think you'd do - look down and say "Oh no you're right, just a cuddle"

It certainly isn't true that only middle class mums bf, but I think it's probably the case that more of them intend to, and if they have problems, are more likely to be able to get the support they need to continue.
Happy to be proved wrong though - I've got nothing to back that up other than anecdote / general opinion.

TBH I pmsl as well stealth. Silly bint.

I dont have any stats but you are probably right. But there are lots and lots of non middle class mums that bf.

Maybe we dont talk about it as much? Dont mean to imply that all middle class mums bang on about bf all the time but the ones that DO tend to be mc. Maybe this gives the impression?

Friends of mine who dont bf and never had any intention of doing so do tend to think of bfers as frumpy hippies who have their norks out all the time.

People are getting these negative impressions (on both sides) from somewhere.

Its all a bit silly.

I breast fed both my girls till 7 months and 6 months and have bo problem with doing it in public but I would not relish the thoughr of witnessing a stapping child latched on to his mother's breast...I don't care where it is!
If people feel the need to carry it on into childhood, fair dues but surely it can be done in the comfort and privacy of their own homes?
It's not like these children are tiny newborns requiring frequent and constant milk feeding.
3 yr olds can always have a Fruit Shoot or a glass of cows milk if they're thirsty.

Do you the irony of what you just said?

Not to mention suggesting a fruit shoot is better!

Nope...what irony?