Yesterday I was in the same room as several mothers who nurse their school aged children

[Babieseverywhere]

This was the annual LLL social coffee morning for nursing mothers of children over 4 years old !
It was so nice to discuss the good and bad points about nursing older children. :D

Roll on next year :)

no you didn't get cows cows pag you liar

I don't need a spreadsheet I have a good memory, especially for interesting things and a three year old nursed in the park was unusual enough for me to remember the details from when you posted last year.

Plus Mumsnet has a handy search feature, search for the poster 'thesecondcoming' with search terms 'breast' and 'park' and the relevant thread popped up.

Still waiting on your PM. I live very close to Manchester and look forward to meeting this lady you are posting about :)

Last post was to TheSecondComing

Errrrrrrrm, Babieseverywere, you are seeming a bit creepy now, what wth the post stalking and loction naming.

Good point TW, I have asked Mumsnet to delete the last post. I just remembered that location as my mate lives there but agree it might cause upset.

I've had a terrible day, was trying to forget sitting in A&E for most of the day with my DD (minor injury but she was very scared and upset :( )

I forget that people write all sorts on here and either forgot they wrote it or didn't mean it etc.

Better take DD's painkillers upstairs in case she needs them later.

Maryz, I do not feel that this thread is fairly supportive.

Several posters have made nasty comments about how selfish, restricting and perverted I am, not very supportive in my book.

Having re-read this thread this morning, I am can see that the lady nursing in the park was made up to illustrate a point and the poster never expected me to take up her suggestion of meeting her. My mistake I assumed the offer made was genuine, as I live quite close. That was the only reason I mentioned locations.

I need to remember that some people both lie and/or post things they do not mean on here and most people don't want real life mentioning at all ;)

My DD slept well but I need to go and change her dressing on her wound, chat later.
Feeling much better and less delicate this morning.:)

Read my actual posts. I DO say it is not what I would do but good on her (lady at the park).

Also note not once in any of my posts, even when I was very upset yesterday have I called any one any names. In my opinion a discussion board is just that for discussion not name calling. It is shame that some people feel insults add to a discussion.

Yes, my DD feels a bit better this morning. Not looking forward to changing her dressing mind...

If I upset you, I am sorry.

As for the rest

I fed DD until she self weaned at 3 yr 5 mnth. If DS (10 months)doesn't feed until 3 ish I will be surprised. At 4 (when I had DS) DD was not in the least interested in nursing again. I tried to give her expressed milk in a cup when she was ill but she didn't like the idea. My feeling about school age children is that it is not "wrong" but it is taboo in our culture and could cause the child some teasing. In a different culture (google "Breastfeeding in the land of Gengis Khan", Mongolia) it would be quite normal.

Hi!!
I am currently breastfeeding my almost three year old (three on 18/4 - she will definitely only BF when she wabts - haha, so funny when people say that mother MAKE their kids - how ridiculous, i agree!!
Yes, it is entirely normal - just our culture that is abnormal - check out how Mongolia perceives BF!!! Now, there's progressive!!
People are very uninformed, nutritionally and culturally - if only people would read a little snippet of something now and again!!
I love LLL, my natural parent group, and my Mother's discussion group. We all have BF happy babes and toddlers - all exceptionally healthy, happy and independant!!!
It is sad, when people do not understand the benefits, and the serious dangers of bottle formula feeding!!!

I honestly could not feed a school age child. I BF DS til he was 2 and DD has just stopped due to me getting sick at 16 months. However, while I personally would not feel comfortable doing it, I do believe that as a parent we have a right to raise OUR children the way WE choose.

Who cares what anyone else thinks, good on you for doing what you feel is best for your child.

whew, finally made it to the end of the thread......sorry, as much as I can see where you guys are coming from, I just cannot get my head round BF school aged children (runs off into the hills to avoid flaming)

I am feeding ds who is 17 months. I really don't believe he gets that much nourishment from it these days, save a bit of comfort. He certainly seems to eat horrendous amounts of food and drink lots of cows' milk and is not large so I can't see that he is getting a massive amount of calories from me.

Personally, I don't mind him doing it morning and evening but I do find that it ties him to me a bit. I have to go away tomorrow night (unavoidable) and I am in knots about it because I still bf. I feel like I am abandoning him. I don't mind this relationship being as it is under 2.5-3ish but personally I draw the line at 3 because I don't want him to remember it specifically.

I also agree with posters a few pages back who say that the anthropological argument doesn't make much sense to me. Antropologically, we live now and our social constructs are valid now. I don't agree with all of those constructs and am happy to challenge many of them, but I wouldn't particularly want to bf a school-aged child because, to my mind, bfing is for infants and toddlers, not for individuals you can have a full-blown conversation with. I appreciate others feel differently, but in my social reality, I feel quite strongly that it would be taboo to feed a school-aged child in my community. Bfing in a country with limited clean water/waterborne diseases makes tremendous sense to me. This is not the case for me personally. I will miss bfing tremendously but I feel that it would be disingenuous of me to have "shaped" other aspects of his behaviour in line with our specific social reality (e.g. sleeping in a cot, drinking from an open cup, using a knife and fork, bringing a book to me to read before bed, regular bathing, discouraging thumb sucking) and not impose some boundaries around feeding. This is my reality and it makes me uncomfortable with some of yours. That is not a statement of judgement, merely a factual observation.

Each to their own!

Just to bunk, the "it's only for night time" brigade, I have seen a woman BF her four year old in a park.

He had fallen over, scraped his elbow and then walked over, sniffling, to lift up his mothers shirt while I was talking with her.

I wouldn't do it myself, and I was slightly uncomfortable, but...she is very lentil weavery.
Each to their own.

Bizarre that you have to be "lentil weavy" to do something which really soothes and comforts your child.

Bizarre that it's ok to feed our children another mammal's lactation product but not our own, and that we're the only mammals who do this. We recognise their need for milk, yet some people think it's ok to give them someone else's milk and not our own. The goodness in our own milk far exceeds that of any other mammal's milk given that it's specifically designed to grow our children's brains and support their immune systems (which don't mature until age 6 or so) so I just don't see the problem.

Milk (of any kind) isn't just good for babies, so BFing past infancy isn't a way of trying to keep a child a baby.

On top of the fact that it's so good for them, children love to connect with their mum in between their busy days. It helps them to re-centre, and relax, then off they go again. Nothing "babyish" about that. It soothes them if they hurt themselves, gives them optimal nutrition if they're sick and can't take anything else, and is a lovely way to get them to sleep if they're a tough sleep cookie.

Confuses the hell out of me .

contrarymartha - that woman in teh park could have been me (albeit 11 years ago!) as ds is now 15! I am certainly not the least bit lentilweaverily.

My DS is 23mo and he still BFs. I know he's not feeding, more comforting / soothing himself - and it gets him to sleep. Its easy for me to give in when I want him to sleep or calm down. Some times, when I say no, he cries a little but soon finds something else to amuse himself with - so I know he can do without it.

I guess I could stop if I wanted to but a part of me remembers and misses the closeness we have when he BFs and I let him - but I'll stop in June after his 2nd birthday.