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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Original poster

Can't seem to change the way I think about BF

319 replies

twiglett · 12/07/2004 15:38

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emkana · 15/07/2004 13:08

Sorry, it says "or beyond"
By the way, twiglett, did you see that I apologized for my earlier post? I'm probably oversensitive, but you don't seem to respond to any of my posts. Or am I imagining that? If so, sorry again!

Original poster
twiglett · 15/07/2004 13:09

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Eulalia · 15/07/2004 13:12

But my ds used to sleep with me till he was 3 and now he sleeps perfectly on his own. Has done for the past 2 years, co-sleeping and feeding doesn't necessarily set up bad patterns.

Original poster
twiglett · 15/07/2004 13:18

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emkana · 15/07/2004 13:19

My dd1 woke up several times at night and needed feeding to sleep. Then she started to sleep through, from one night to the next, and then she stopped needing feeding to sleep. Now she's a perfect sleeper in every way. So it's just wrong to talk about setting up bad habits/patterns! If you let them, children learn to sleep through in their own time, when their developmentally ready.

Original poster
twiglett · 15/07/2004 13:20

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Eulalia · 15/07/2004 13:31

Just to back up my own claims of good health in my children... Health Care Costs of Formula-feeding in the First Year of Life

Basically it says that ff babies have more illnesess (lower respiratory tract illnesses, otitis media, and gastrointestinal illness) than exclusively b/fed and this costs the health services. And this is the US and the UK we are talking about.

We all know that children don't stop being vulnerable to these illnesses at 12 months so extended b/feeding is a lot more than just keeping our children as 'babies'.

emkana · 15/07/2004 13:33

But twiglett, it says up to 2 years AND BEYOND - so how does that support your point of view? Don't get that at all!
If you're co-sleeping and breastfeeding then I think most people are very likely to carry on feeding on demand at night.

Original poster
twiglett · 15/07/2004 13:35

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Original poster
twiglett · 15/07/2004 13:40

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emkana · 15/07/2004 13:41

She started sleeping through when she was nearly two.
I have read many of the sleep threads, sometimes I wonder if the babies/children in question might not sleep through at some point all by themselves if you just wait and see... but that's a whole different topic anyway, which I don't really want to get into...
Still waiting for jollymum to take back 'abusive'.

emkana · 15/07/2004 13:43

I do know what you mean, twiglett, of course it's perfectly all right to stop before age 2 - some children self-wean at 18 months or whatever! But that still doesn't mean that the WHO supports in any way the view that feeding past 12 months is wrong, yukky or abusive...

Original poster
twiglett · 15/07/2004 13:48

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daisy1999 · 15/07/2004 13:54

I think extending breastfeeding for too long can hinder a child from "growing up". We might like to keep them as babies but it is not in a childs best interest for a mother to cling onto babyhood. Well done anyone who bf for longer than 6months but after 12/ 18 months imho they are doing it for themselves.

emkana · 15/07/2004 14:01

Wahey, we're going round in circles.
I didn't feed dd1 to 2years 3 months because I wanted to keep her a baby, and I didn't do it for myself, even though I enjoyed it. I did it because I believe that it is the natural and right thing to do, and looking at my dd1 now I see an intelligent, independent (!), happy little girl, who is hardly ever ill, and never has more than a cold. So was I just lucky then to get away with it ?

hercules · 15/07/2004 14:03

Sorry Daisy but how many mothers do you know who breastfed beyond 12 months? I'm assuming an awful lot if you are able to make such a point!

Original poster
twiglett · 15/07/2004 14:03

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hercules · 15/07/2004 14:05

I didnt feed to keep ds as a baby and I dont think anyone here has said they did either.
I'm interested to know what this point is based on.

hercules · 15/07/2004 14:07

I think Twiglett that as we have been told what we do makes people horrified (as you said in your first post) that extended bf are bound to want to justify why they breastfeed.

hercules · 15/07/2004 14:08

I think people saying what we do makes their skin crawl and is abusive will make anyone a tad defensive.

motherinferior · 15/07/2004 14:08

I've admitted that I do feel I b/feed dd2 'because she's my baby' - she's 12 months. But I really don't want to be b/fing her during the day, on demand, as a friend of mine was doing with her two and half year old.

Twiggy, I'm the inferior one in this village! Get OFF!

hercules · 15/07/2004 14:10

I think of dd at nine months as my baby and will do so too at 12 months. I didnt think of ds as a baby at 3 though but saw no problem with breastfeeding him at that age.

tamum · 15/07/2004 14:15

On the other hand, I breastfed my ds until he was 17 months and he was constantly going from one chest infection to the next. I breastfed dd until 23 months and she had heaven knows how many ear infections that caused her eardrum to burst and was hospitalised twice. Her ear infections ceased when she was 2 (not because I had stopped feeding her but because she had matured). Unless my breastmilk is very inferior then it seems a bit pointless to produce anecdotes as a way of proving that long-term breastfeeding gives children stronger immune systems as there will always be counter-anecdotes, and it is impossible to do any controls!

Incidentally, does anyone have any evidence that IgA continues to be absorbed through infants' guts past babyhood? I know breastmilk always contains it, but certainly in other species the gut cease to be permeable beyond a certan point. I'm not being confrontational, just interested.

hercules · 15/07/2004 14:19

here

One of the points made is that children are designed to be fed up to 7.

Eulalia · 15/07/2004 14:21

People who co-sleep (who may or may not breastfeed) just bypass that whole teaching babies to sleep bit... they just wait till they are older and ready to sleep properly on their own. the attachment parenting lot state that it is bad for young babies to be put onto strict routines and getting them to sleep through the night at 8 weeks or whatever is unnatural and acutally bad for them, but that is a whole debate in itself. The thing is that the co-sleeping kids do develop good sleeping habits - we just don't bother with all that training malarky and wait till they are older when it is easier.