To think BF-ing a 2yr old is, um, weird?

[Lucy85]

Well what do you think? I know it's a very emotive subject, but I've seen it a couple of times and it makes me come over all strange.
I BFed my baby exclusively until 7 months when I went back to work, but the thought of doing it now is just plain odd, - not wrong, it's just I can't imagine doing it to someone who can walk, talk, get their own drinks, eats proper food and is too big to lie sideways on my lap.

[dammit]

Fanjo
My mum fed all of us until we stopped. She had 8 children in ten years.
Thank God people can breastfeed and have sex because you would miss me if I wasn't here..

i meant scary as in their posts were scary, or rather their reactions!
not them per se

Greensleeves, not sure why you even care do I really need to explain why I feel a certain way. I just do.

I think reading this thread has made me grow up a bit (it took long enough to read it!)

I BF my 3 dc's, but stopped when they were 12m, 14m and 18m respectively. Each time, because family members thought it was weird and wrong.

I'm lucky enough to be PG again. This time, I will BF as long as the child needs to, and I don't give a flying fig what anyone else thinks.

Historically, dc's BF until they were naturally weaned (6-7), because it was (and still is) valuable nutrition that couldn't be found elsewhere (human breastmilk was and still is more suitable for human children than cows milk).
Nowadays, loads of people claim that there is no need nutritionally to BF after a certain time (depending on the person making these claims, this seems to be anything from 6 weeks onwards), but BF has benefits - nutritional and emotional - for both mother and child, and those enlightened souls who choose to feed their dc's until they feel the time is right to stop, frankly, should should be applauded, not told they are weird, as they are doing their very best for their children.

Near the beginning, quite a few BFers were accused of being aggressive towards the OP.
If a BFer had started a thread about FF being wrong and creepy, I can imagine the FFer's would have been out in force (like they did in a thread last week)

FJ I suppose it doesn't matter why you feel that way as long as you don't expect other people to change their behaviour, or judge them for it (which makes them feel uncomfortable)

If you keep it to yourself it's fine. It's the people who insist on commenting negatively in the street (or on MN) that actually do harm.

I hate having my breasts mauled touched by any man it goes through me. won't give any details of sex life but how does bf interfere with sex life

I care because the "creepy and gross" attitude makes it very difficult and is very upsetting to mothers who breastfeed their children beyond early babyhood.

can you really not see why this is important?

And if you really have no idea WHY you have this reaction then if it were me I would want to explore it and work out what my problem was.

greensleeves

I think that (maybe wrongly) there are some negative connutations around EBF

I for one see NOTHING sexual in it, nada, niente so get that one off the table

But I think some prejuduces sround it include:

often its for comfort more than food, and people feel uncomfortable seeing a small child sucking a part of the body for comfort

it can be seen as the mother not wanting the child to grow up, and for that reason makes people feel uncomfortable

some toddlers look quite big, so whilst it has very valid reasons it can look a bit "bitty"

so people have the wrong impression that some mothers are keeping their "babies" for longer than necessary?

I am going to back out now (yeh yeh), but I did want to try and answer the question of why it makes some people feel uncomfortable thats all

do people feel uncomfortable seeing a child sucking it's thumb for comfort porca? it is a body part.

"it can be seen as the mother not wanting the child to grow up, and for that reason makes people feel uncomfortable"

"so people have the wrong impression that some mothers are keeping their "babies" for longer than necessary?"

this is the same point made twice.

and reading this thread has taught me alot. Will I EBF> probably not, no, but it will make me more tolerant towards people that do

as someone said we feel more comfortable seeing a 16 year old with her tits out in The Sun that seeing a 2.5 year old being BF, and like it or not I am part of that , tis a shame

My experience was that my libido was zilch when I was bf'ing, so an upside to stopping was my libido coming back. I remember feeling so incredibly grateful and happy when I started to feel like my old self again as I had really missed my sexual relationship with DH and to feel desired again as a sexual being. To those of you whose sex drive was unaffected by bf'ing; great, lucky you and your partner.

Lenin I never said 'yuk' about people having/not having sex with their partners. The 'yuk' was in reference to older children pulling mums' tops up/down.

Fanjo Mine was totally gone for about 7months on ds and 9months on dd then it starts to come back .

my libido is only just coming back to normal and ds is 13 months old and still BFed.

FanjolinaJolie,

I think the low/non existent sex life that many new mums experience, is due to the new baby in the house not to the method of feeding.

After all feeding an older baby or toddler is nothing like nursing a newborn. Even an older baby can wait or be distracted when they want a feed and a toddler can literally wait days.

"so people have the wrong impression that some mothers are keeping their "babies" for longer than necessary?"

yes, people have the WRONG impression. They are mistaken and, in any event, it isn't any of their bloody business to comment. Wind your neck in, as my mother would quite rightly say!

In my professional and personal experience, interest in sex bears no relationship to bf or not. It is wrong to confuse ONE personal experience with anything more general.

can i just add, that the feeling of lethargy, depression and frustration have also started to dissapear all at the same time as libido returning, none of which i contribute to breastfeeding.

LOL at lack of libido...true, it can delay your cycle returning to the usual, which in turn can make you a bit 'flat' but as soon as I started having periods again my libido just went mad. I could launch a thousand ships with it.

It's a shame there aren't any, erm, ships to be launched at present...

yeah I bf for five years nonstop and I seem to have gained about 20 pounds and a greyish, haggard pallour.
PESKY breastfeeding!

my cycle returned to normal after 6 months but libido not so.

Haven't had a chance to catch up on the last dozen posts but have to say I'm a bit at posieparker and porca's comments/suggestions to Flight regarding children crying themselves to sleep.

You are either comfortable with this approach or completely uncomfortable - it's hardly like a mother of a 1+ year old will have got that far without hearing about controlled crying and having their own strong view on it.

I've had friends/family suggest that to me before and it makes me so .

And Posie, recent research shows that babies left to cry are more insecure in later life than babies who were always responded to.

Sorry if this has all been resolved nicely, don't want to stir things up again!

Thanks Cakes

When Porca said it I honestly couldn't believe she was being serious.

Booyhoo...I do wonder if it is a time thing and not a cycle thing, in that case. Mine did take 28 months to return but immediately I was like, well I don't quite know how to describe it. 'Desperate' might cover it.!