Is there an 'extended' breastfeeding support thread?

[Unrulysun]

Or would I be better off on LLL?

Just read the 'school-age children' thread with interest but didn't want to derail :)

dd is 1 today so it's not 'extended' bf by any normal definition but judging by the number of 'Are you going to carry on breastfeeding her?' (yes because otherwise she'll be composed primarily of grapes) conversations I've had inflicted on me in the last week I think I'm going to need all the support I can get

so proud we made it this far - ha ha!

OCC - I'm going tomorrow too and will be wearing a beige stone coloured top and trousers with a navy/white striped cardigan. I also have shoulder length mid brown hair and glasses!

I started a thread here about who is going but not many replies

I've only got to page 3 so jumping in a bit. I haven't been here for ages - been distracted by Primary Education - but dd is 5.3 and still very keen. She only nurses on waking and to sleep. I've wanted her to stop for ages, but I don't see how unless she wants to. I was on serious painkillers for a couple of days a few weeks ago so said no snuggles. Which she was really good about but her behaviour generally was really demanding. Sighs of relief all round when normality restored.

But today she said she was talking to one of the TAs and the TA said her daughter still had snuggles at 9. Now, I'm assuming that the TA is thinking that "snuggles" means a cuddle. So dd of course thinks it means she can nurse til she is 9 - great! But I am worried about her talking to people at school. Don't want to say "don't talk about it", but I don't want her to talk about it!

I want her to want to stop. How do I do that?

well I have managed 5 years so far, 1 of them co-feeding. I don't think my boobs could manage much more and I am looking forward to wearing a bra without 'quick release straps'

downy I want dd2 (2.8) to want to stop as I couldn't bear to force her to stop. She only feeds for bed now but she very rarely sleeps without a feed which is maling it twice as hard

Hi AchtungBaby!

I spoke to a mum at LLL once who had 10 children and had fed them all for at least 3 years.

I feel like a novice compared to that!

at 30 years of (probably overlapping ) BFing.

indeed.

On a slightly less giddy note...

DS (9 months) has 4 BFs / day at ~6am, 10:30am, 2:30pm, and 6:45pm. He isn't really fed on demand any more (mainly because I like him to have his during-the-day milk feeds 1 hour+ before lunch / tea). I'm not particularly keen to drop any BFs, but I wonder whether he'd like to; he's often not particularly keen during the day (like today, at the mother + baby group ). Any thoughts about this?

His weight was between the 25th and 50th centiles pre-weaning, and is now betwen the 75th and 91st centiles post-weaning .

Hi everyone,

Just a quick question if thats ok...my DD, 14 months, has not wanted a bf before bed for the past 3 nights but she has guzzled soya milk from a bottle from her daddy. Is this the beginning of the end? We are only feeding morning and night now but I had hoped that this would continue for a while, till age 2 anyway. But she seems to have lost interest alot of the time. In the morning the length of feed varies - sometimes she will feed on and off for half an hoursometimes 5 minutes. And she is very clear when she has had enough and wants out of bed shouting "up!" ( we bring her into bed for the morning feed). Im feeling a little upset tonight. She is teething and I think that this makes things worse as she struggles to suck for long. All three nights she has seemed keen to initiailly latch but within seconds she has been off and not happy :(

Any advice would be great.

Hi harverina.

I don't have any experience of this yet I'm afraid, but I wonder whether your DD's appetite is just variable in the morning, and whether her teething is also contributing (particularly in the evening). What about trying a little Calpol / teething gel before her evening feed, and seeing how she gets on?

Haven't caught up on thread and I'm unlikely to anytime soon but thought you might like this:

theleakyboob.com/2011/06/toddler-breastfeeding-frustration-and-what-keeps-me-going/

Unicorns farting rainbows and Carpe di Leche made me literally PMSL. Not that it takes much nowadays. Huh, MN should have a PMSL smiley .

Thanks for the link OCC. Made me smile .

Today I left DS with my mom (visiting from SA) for 12 hours to go to DH's grandfathers's funeral in Cambridge. It is the longest I have ever left him. He was fine apparently (even asleep by the time we got home) but I really started to itch to get home to see him from about 5pm . DH was rather cross at my impatience to get back (4hour drive) but I think he just didn't 'get' it. AIBU, I wonder.

i'd like to join too - my youngest is going strong at 20 months and it's nice to see the honesty here - I'm tired and busy and love ds2 and know it's so good for him, just struggling a bit with being needed so very much. Poor dh gets abuse if he tries to help with relief, stalling etc!

May I ask if people have supportive DP/DHs? My DH swaps between thinking bf DD is great and the reason for everything good about her, and then saying it's 'weird' and 'wrong' and the reason she's such a mummy's girl. I wish he'd read some of the things I've bookmarked, but he won't.

We used to talk about this every couple of months, but as DD approaches her 2nd birthday the topic somes up almost every week. And a lot this past week as I got home from hospital having broken my leg. DH says it was extra hard for him cos DD feeds to sleep, which is probably true. But he can't acknowledge he had a tough time at least in part due to the simple fact I was away, nothing to do with the milk.

Hi LittleCatZ and jadziadax. Oh, it sounds like your DCs are similar ages .

jadziadax, I hope your broken leg is healing well! It must be hard for both you and your DH at the moment. It sounds like your DH knows that BFing is great for your DD (and for you), but that he's temporarily forgetting the positive aspects when he's having a hard time, eg trying to get DD to go to sleep when you were in hospital.

What about dowloading a PDF copy of this Extended Breastfeeding fact sheet from kellymom, and printing it out for your DH? It's pretty informative, and only 2 sides of A4, so hopefully he could read it quickly while he's having a cup of tea, just to remind himself of all the positive aspects of natural term BFing.

Oh, and TheRealMBJ YANBU .

jadziadax I feed dd2(33m) to sleep and DP struggles when he tries to get her to sleep. I begged him for help when I was pregnant with dc4 but he never once put her to bed. Then when I went to give birth I was worrying constantly about dd2. In the end he let her stay up with him until she fell asleep in the sofa. She never does this with me, and she didn't even miss me when I was away for 4 days As soon as I got back though she wanted her 'booby' again.
Apart from that he is supportive of me feeding them both.

jadzia - I wish I could clone my DH (well just the bfing aspect of him ) as he is so pro-bfing. Example of his attitude to bfing here.

He is happy for me to nurse our DDs as long as they want to. He has been talking to DD2 about her perhaps weaning soon as he knows I'm not too keen on her stopping so have been cowardly and avoided the conversation BUT he did tell her as long as she was able to have 'bah' she would have it.

He doesn't blame nursing for any bad behaviour but he has sometimes ask me to nurse one of the DDs out of the grumps as he knows it's great for getting a threenager out of a strop.....

If I could get him to speak to your DH I would, he would definitely make your DH feel grateful for the effort you've put into bfing your DCs by the time he'd finished (and get him on side with longer term nursing).

I have just discovered nursing vs tantrums - DS has just started bashing head on floor type ones, and when I picked him up a couple of times he asked for 'molk' and cheered up

Thank you Achtung . Thursday was a very emotional day for us all and DH and I ended up having a massive argument in the car in front of BIL and his GF . It was very undignified.

I'm sure DS is (slowly) self-weaning as he asks soooooo infrequently now . I think it has a lot to do with my colostrum coming back and there not being a great volume of milk available. He has not been fed after bedtime for over a week now, and although he still wakes up frequently, will now settle with some singing or rocking. We are still partially co-sleeping and he still wakes at 5am wanting 'na-na' but I'm not emotionally capable of feeding him then so we get up, make a cup of tea for me and get a beaker of cow's milk for him and chat for a bit before I let him have a feed when he next asks at around 5H30. I'm much happier now that I'm not swearing at him under my breath all night.

Funnily enough DH and I had a chat today about how long I will continue to bf DD (coming up 14 months).

We had dinner with BIL and SIL tonight abs they were asking if I was still feeding and when I would stop and then of course we had the hilarious and oh so original bitty jokes. I sometimes consider just lying and saying I've stopped feeding her. But I don't see why I should. She is still a baby (not that I have anything against feeding an older child, just that I find it appalling that it raises eyebrows to bf a child as young as her)

Anyway, my previous agreement with DH had been that I would feed her to end June. She was prem and her due date was 30 June and I always wanted to feed her till she was fully a year adjusted. But that date is fast coming around and I have no plans to stop.

I asked DH what his opinion was and he said so long as DD and I are both happy he is supportive of us continuing to bf. So I said, what if I fed for another year, would you be happy with that. And he looked aghast and said that might be a bit much but another few months is fine...

I'm just going to keep going as long as I want to but I want to at least pay lip service to giving him a say!!

oh that's so sweet truthsweet

good idea Achtung about printing something out. Paper does seem more "real" sometimes.
And I think you're right that he knows bf is a good thing, but sometimes it's a bit confronting. On the plus side MIL is brilliant, grew up in SE Asia where natural term bf is/was just the done thing, and bf DH and BIL against medical advice in 1970's Canada.

Debs75 I'm glad your DH is supportive, even if the occasional practical support would also be useful. How old is your DC4 now?

KD0706 good luck with a continuing bf relationship with your DD. Hopefully your DH will come to realize the benefits are too good for you to wean your DD on some random date determined by our western society, rather than when is best for her and you.

p.s. sorry about delayed response. I'm in Australia.

dc4 is now 10 months. I plan on feeding her till she is 1 then stopping so I can stop feedingdc 3 who will be 2.11 by then. I have tried stopping with dc3 but she sees me feed dc4 and gets jealous. If dc3 had already stopped then I would feed dc4 a bit longer, which is what I can see happening as I enjoy it so much

KD0706, My husband was supportive of bfing, but if I had asked him a while ago about how he would feel about bfing a 4 year old, he'd have been horrified. Here I am now, bfing a 4 year old and he thinks it is great! I think it's that mental leap between looking at your sweet little baby and someone elses hulking 4 year old that makes the idea seem odd, but when you just keep going it seems completely natural!

I still look at other peoples 4 year olds and thinkl 'I'm bfing a child that size!' but your own child is still the baby you started feeding, and the years just catch upon you!

Careyhunt I agree when I feed dd2 on a night she seems to morph back into the little newborn she was nearly 3 years ago

TruthSweet, at 'threenager'.

CareyHunt, I sound like your DH! DS is only 9.5months, and when I think of how long I'd like to BF for, I think 1 year - yes, 2 years - yes, I think so, 3 years - oh, hmm...

DH and I feel quite happy just to relax and see how it goes. It would be lovely if DS ultimately stops BFing when he's ready to.

Has anybody read Ann Sinnott's "Breastfeeding Older Children"? There is some interesting stuff in there about men and their unmet needs stemming from little or no breastfeeding in their own baby/childhoods.

I don't want to go into great detail here but it's not all plain sailing in this house in terms of support.