He was 4.3 (years) when he stopped, and 4.10 now. He stopped quite happily - I didn't even notice TBH as he just sort of gradually fed less and less often until he was ill and I offered it to him and he said no as though I was suggesting something silly.
But then about a month or two ago, he saw a friend feeding her baby, and suddenly seemed to remember that he used to have milk and started trying to get to my breast, in the middle of a park! He hadn't been interested at all since he weaned, and even before then never in public, no time really other than bedtime for about a year so this really surprised me.
I assumed it was a one off, we had a conversation about how there was no milk there any more and he seemed quite happy. But then a few days later he asked to try. I felt really uncomfortable about it but I thought, okay, once can't hurt just so he knows there isn't milk there. And again, he seemed satisfied having proven that there was no milk.
Except, he keeps asking. Not often, but sometimes he actually tries to latch and I have to physically move him away. I don't know what to do! I don't really want to just let him because it feels weird if there's no milk there. I did a search online and it seems this most commonly occurs when you get pregnant again and the milk supply starts back up but this isn't the case, and isn't likely to be the case for another 1-2 years (if anything this is strengthening the decision to wait!) - all the advice seems to be to let them continue, but what if you don't want to? I feel torn between irritation/confusion that he is still doing this and guilt, perhaps I encouraged him to stop too soon? I didn't consciously wean him, but I was doing a very intense course at the time that he chose to stop and I was probably a bit less "free and easy" about feeding than I would have been otherwise. I also feel a bit guilty at not wanting him to start again even though I know this is nuts as he's nearly five and in some ways I was relieved when he did stop.
Also, random only slightly related straw poll/problem: If your child was still obsessed with your boobs at the age of almost 5, what age did you stop breastfeeding them? He is obsessed with trying to touch them if he sees them, or like today I am wearing a top with no bra, my nipple is very slightly visible through my top and he was putting stickers on me and kept putting them deliberately on my nipple, trying to stroke it "to pat the sticker down" etc, and it creeps me out so much that it sometimes makes me feel physically sick. I suffered (relatively minor) sexual abuse when I was younger and I really don't like being touched there without my express consent. (Also having an issue currently with him wanting to touch/pretend to "smack" my bum which again I'm probably overly touchy about, but WTF child! Learn that some body parts are private! We don't smack him, BTW.)
Breastfeeding itself was fine, even the nipple-twiddling-while-bf phase was okay, but this feels horrible, and if it's EBF which has encouraged this obsession, then I think I'm really going to have to rethink the whole self-weaning thing if we have more children, because I can't cope with the constantly pawing thing, and then I wonder if I'm just being unfair and unrealistic to expect him to see the transition that I see, ie [Breastfeeding: My boobs are basically free territory. Not breastfeeding: My boobs are MINE and nobody is allowed to even look at them.]
Any thoughts/experience?