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 :)

Truthsweet, I do hear what you are saying but in our current western culture, most people have a sexual element to their breasts.

But most people can separate elements of their adult sex life, from parenting their child. It is only when breastfeeding is discussed that somehow people can't separate the biological breast from the sexual breast. Quite strange to be unable to see a difference. It is the same difference between kissing your child and kissing your husband in a passionate way, both acts involve the same lips. Maybe we should stop kissing our children too ?

I'm just reading "Mothering Your Nursing Toddler" which has some interesting stats in it WRT nursing age.

Most mammals nurse until their young triple their birth weight - around a year, in human terms. Which is interesting.

For larger mammals - horses, elephants etc, weaning tends to happen when the young quadruple their birth weight. Around 18 months to 2 years, in human terms. Again, interesting.

However, with monkeys, specifically apes (ie our closest relations in the animal kingdom) - it's the other way around, when their young reach roughly a quarter of their adult weight. Which is anywhere from age 4-6 in human terms. Funnily enough, just when the majority of children choose to self-wean in all studies/counts which have been done.

OK you could say we're not animals and there's no need to behave like them - but we're still mammals and if it's shown to have a biological advantage, how could it possibly be harmful to do this? Nobody's saying everyone has to do it. Just get off the backs of people who do - it's up to them, surely?

As for the argument that breasts are sexual - well kissing can be sexual, but you still kiss your children. It's a totally different thing. Exactly like the difference between kissing your children, and kissing your husband.

x-posted about the kissing thing!

It was worth repeating, Bertie, Thanks for the excellent book recommendation.

I would also like to put forward suggestions of two books too widen peoples opinions of breastfeeding.

First..Nursing Older Children by Ann Sinnott.

Second...For more open minded readers. Fresh Milk.

Babies - Mine are sexual to a degree too I'm not claiming to be some kind of Lactational Madonna! But I don't understand how they are sexualised in this time/culture. I guess what I am getting at is how did something we use for feeding babies end up being associated with penises (as an equivalent body part) and sex acts not the original purpose. To me babies and sex are not a good mix so I wonder if the sexualisation of breasts came with the advent of formula (breasts not needing to be used for infant feeding) and the increase in sex as recreation (rubber condoms being more reliable than sheep intestines).

I totally accept breasts are a sex characteristic of females as are wide hips and narrow waists BTW.

Maryz, Breastfeeding your own child will never have a sexual element in it ever. Just like kissing your own parents is never sexual.

Of course I am talking about in a normal healthy parent child relationships only.

It seems to me that feeding an older toddler/child seems strange to someone who hasn't breastfed or stopped when child was still a baby because they haven't experienced the continuation of baby to toddler to child.

I breastfed dd1 til she was almost a year old. She stopped herself with no imput from me. She was never that interested in feeding anyway.

I had dd2 when dd1 was 2.6. DD1 didn't ask to feed even then, seeing me feed dd2 and was actually not impressed when I told her she had done it too. Back then I couldn't have imagined breastfeeding a child of that age because we had stopped when she was a baby.

DD2 is still happily feeding away at 2.4, I can easily imagine still feeding her in 2 months time because we have always done it. It is natural for us.

I think people struggle with the idea of a 3 year old for example asking for a feed because the don't think of the feeding relationship that already exists between the mother and child.

I'm not sure I explained that very well - I am full of cold and very fuzzy headed.

I think that makes sense suiledonne. I tried to explain it in my post but couldn't and deleted it.

It's not just about nutrition after a certain point - it's a two way part of the relationship. It's about a connection, something like a hug, or a kiss, but not. It's also the comfort blanket, the magic cream or the "kiss-it-better", as well as a myriad of other things. It's hard to explain if you haven't experienced it because I don't think we have the words for it in our language.

And yet saying "You can't understand it unless you've done it" comes across as snobby and seems to put people off even more I think some people will just always object.

I too can't be arsed to go into the pros, cons, historical debates etc. I am very pro BF - had to give up BF my dd at 3 months when I went back to work (back in the old days when expressing at work would have been impossible) and to be honest I don't think I would choose to BF a child to school age.

But - I certainly don't see anything wrong with BF a child at 5, 6 as long as the mother and child were happy with it. I think it's a nice thing to do if it suits the family. And also think it is a good thing to have BF groups as described in the OP because unfortunately there is a stigma attached to it.

I really don't understand why people get offended by other women's choices on how they feed their child. As long as the mother and child are happy and healthy really what is the issue?

Never mind who's still breastfeeding their 5 year old... who's still passionately kissing their husband once they've got a 5 year old

Each to their own. For me it's a question of - do I want to involve my child in something which society finds taboo? Generally the answer to that is, for me, "no".

And I'm also with NoWayNoHow in that the revering of times past gets up my nose.

I've read this entire thread smiling at blackcurrants contribution -

"are you going to feed him yourself forever?" Uuuh, no, I think I'll die at some point, then he will, and then the planet will either cool or explode.. not FOREVER, no.

Ta for that, I've no idea how long I'll BF for, but with DS at 8 months that answer will already come in handy!

Children self-wean from lots of practices, not just breastfeeding.
Wearing nappies, using a potty, using nappies at night...they grow out of toys that no longer stimulate them, they grow out of needing to sleep alongside their parents or have daily cuddles...the list is endless. The only reason why some people are uncomfortable about the idea of self-weaning is that deep down, on some level, they're uncomfortable about breasts.

Far better, IMO, to admit that than to attempt to sublimate it with bogus arguments about ebf being wrong/ dirty/ unnatural, etc.

Just with regard to when children might stop if not weaned, there's an extended breastfeeding documentary that's often bandied about on the lifestyle channels, the name escapes me, but IIRC there is a tongue reflex needed to breastfeed that the child grows out of at about the age of 7. Now the docu was taking the 'it's weird' angle so not sure how reliable that is, but if thats the case I would take it that biologically we are meant to breastfeed until then. I don't know how I feel about it myself, I'm b'feeding my 4 mo old and dread the thought of stopping it.

schmee - I suppose then I don't really see it as 'involving' the child in anything - it's just a continuation of the status quo. I guess I see it from the opposite perspective - am I going to let society's taboos interfere with something I can clearly see has a lot of benefit to my child? No, I'm not. Each to their own though :)

Interestingly children's immune systems mature at age 7. What a coincidence that that's when the tongue reflex disappears and we stop digesting lactose. Pure coincidence, of course!

Bertie
I agree, although I think taboo was too strong a word for extended breast feeding anyway.

I hope my children grow up to contemplate whether they should just go along with societies norms because everyone else does. Or question what makes more sense to them.

I was pretty lucky. I never even thought about it. I grew up in a family where we were all breastfed and all my sisters and SILs bf too. I never had to contemplate at what arbritary date society would start doing a cats bum face. I just stopped because we just gradually stopped. When the dcs were ready.
Not difficult really.

FWIW, for those who don't know much about bfing, the breasts self-regulate the nutritional makeup of the milk according to the age of the child. This happens the instant they suckle. So each child has a tailor-made drink providing it with a significant proportion of its daily nutrients. Brilliant for all kids, especially fussy eaters.

Then, of course, there's the tailor-made antibody factory - where the mother's body designs antibodies for whatever infection the child has and then passes them back to the child through the milk.

Our bodies are awesome!

So, how does our milk know which infection our child has? That's the bit that I don't get. I can understand that, if I have an illness, I might make antibodies to that for my child.
It is all amazing, though, isn't it?