Have you BF for a year or more? Wondering when to stop...

[lucidlady]

DD is 2 weeks shy of her first birthday. She is still BF, and has 2 feeds a day during the week, with 1 bottle. At weekends, she has 3. I'm starting to get comments from DH, DM etc about "turning off the taps", and it seems that everyone has assumed I'll go cold turkey on BF once she turns 1. But I'm not sure I want to?! I love BF. I love the closeness of it, especially at bedtime, after a day at work. I've managed to do it for so much longer than I ever expected (we had so many problems at first) and I feel really quite tearful at the thought of stopping.

I don't know anyone who has BF past one year. Is it possible? Does it still benefit the little one? And do they ever self-wean?

The response is simple;

"Why do I need to stop? She's happy. I'm happy. Does it cause you a problem?"

Does it really make sense to them that you should stop giving her milk which is designed for her personally and, instead, start feeding her something designed for animals with completely different needs?

I BF both my girls until they were three simply because there was no reason to stop. Why would I take away a healthy, comforting drink from them because of some weird convention which dictates the we should stop at a certain age?

OP keep feeding her as long as you and she are happy to carry on. It is likely to have health advantages for her as well as giving the two of you some lovely bonding time.

Enjoy it while it lasts. I still miss it now and then and my two are big girls now.

I LOVE that Kellmom link! I've read it before a few times and each time it reminds me that not only is it ok that DS is still BFing at 18 months but that there's a lot of evidence that it's beneficial to us both.

I might include that list of benefits in my upcoming lesson about birth & BFing for yr 7.

My eldest stopped a few weeks shy of her 5th birthday, just over a year later she still tells me she hasn't stopped, she will ask when she wants it. My second daughter stopped with her at 2.5 (I had another baby and was in hospital for a long time, eldest got out of habit, middlie forgot) and I'm still going with my 16 month old. No one asks any more, they never did with the middlie because I was still going with her sister so the answer was a bit obvious!

I used to say "I'm just doing what I did yesterday, it was OK then, it's OK now. We'll stop when we're ready" and when I had comments about being pregnant and still feeding (what're you going to do when the baby's born?) I used to say "I have two boobs, don't I?"

I've never justified it to anyone, I made it clear decision was made.

Still going with both mine, the eldest just turned 4 yo and the youngest is 19mo.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to carry on, lots of mothers do if it suits them :) As others have said, there are lots of benefits to you both. If you feel like you need some support from like minded mums then you could try looking for an LLL group near you.

Still going at 2.1 and 29 weeks pregnant here. No sign of it abating though my supply definitely dropped earlier in pregnancy. I'm quite looking forward to attempting tandem feeding. DS feeds early morning and naptime, weekends usually just early morning. He's happy, DH is happy, I'm happy, nobody else needs to know much about it anymore.

I am still nursing my twins, who'll be 2 next week.

I work full time, so both children rarely nurse in the day, though they sometimes do if I am on leave or at the weekend.

Until recently (a month or two?), they've both fed at bedtime and then two or three times overnight. They have now both pretty much dropped the bedtime feed (as I am increasingly not here for it), and my DS often sleeps through now, so it can be a few days between his feeds. DD is still feeding several times overnight every night.

So I guess they drop feeds, you drop feeds, they make up for the ones you drop by feeding more some other time, it ebbs and flows. Each of my DC is very different feeding wise now, and it wouldn't surprise me if DS self weans in the next 6 months (though I don't really know if that counts as self weaning given that I'm back at work so not feeding in the day), what I think DD will feed for a good while yet.

As someone else said, feed until either you or your baby want to stop. All medical advise is to continue to at least 2 years, so as long as you're happy to continue, I can't see what reasons MIL/DH could give you to stop :)

bfed first til 3 and thru pregnancy and a bit after the birth of second dd. To be honest I didn't set out to do this but it was a convenient way to get her to go to sleep (and thru the night, although I did night wean at 2) and it helped transition of me going back to part time work and also helped keep my supply going thru pregnancy when I feared I'd have to deliver dd2 early (was ok in the end)

to be honest, I never discussed it really with anyone (although my mother, MIL and a couple of friends knew as it came up regarding babysitting) and never really had to do it in public beyond 18-20 months.

Once I'd nightweaned the resentment over frequent resettling and ages lying there like a lemon subsided and I can't honestly say that I thought that much about it. It simply became the New Normal.

I expect the same with dd2 who is still feeding on demand at 14 months.

Good luck. And don't listen to anyone but yourself. It's not without its downsides (babysitting can be more tricky, but hasn't stopped us, and resettling a teething baby 10 times a night can be a pain) but by and large it's been lovely to do it.

I bf ds until 2.2 including through pregnancy. I weaned dd at 2.3 when I'd had enough. 1 to me seems young to wean, they're still babies! It was such a handy way to get them to nap and to comfort them if hurt etc. because I stopped when I had had enough and not when others thought I should I don't miss it or regret stopping at all, just have happy bf memories.