BFing past 1 year - have you done it? How does it work?

[EffiePerine]

Am still bfing DS who is now just over 9 months. DH made a few ill-advised comments along the lines of 'why not give up now as it isn;t benefiting him any more' and got an earful ;). Am planning on bfing to a year as can't be bothered faffing about with formula (I express at work as I work 4 days a week and he has 1-2 bottles of ebm during the day).

Am now thinking whether I do want to give up at a year and would like to hear others' experiences. Ideally, I'd carry on bfing morning and night (or just at night) and not during the day so I wouldn't have to express any more (hooray!). Did you do this? What were the benefits? What problems did you run into?

I know bfing an older baby/toddler in public can be an issue, but tbh I don't tend fed DS in public now cos he's so wriggly and easily distracted, so would prob carry on feeding at home.

Also, from a practical point of view, what about BRAS? I am starting to loathe my nursing bras and have switched to underwired during the day, but will I need to change to yet another size when I stop feeding?

I fed DS1 until he was 2. After about 14 months I fed him only first and last thing.
He self weaned when I was pregnant with DS2.
I also was fed up with nursing bras so just wore my ordinary underwired bras and would pull the bra down to feed him at night (in the morning I would feed him in our bed before I was up and dressed). Found my bra size was the same as pre-pregnancy.
We both enjoyed this arrangement and he was never ill (unlike his friends who were no longer breastfed).
I found it all very easy at this stage and plan to do the same with DS2. HTH

Effie, I b/f ds until he was about 14 months, then decided we had both had enough (good job I did actually, less than 10 days later I was in hospital with appendicitis so he would have had a forced "stop" then!). I was down to feeding just first thing in the morning and last thing before he went to bed; the rest of the time he had cows' milk (this was after he was a year, obviously). The first morning without a b/f (when I was giving up) I took him straight downstairs and gave him milk in a cup - he looked slightly puzzled and stroked my breast, but then drank it happily and never looked back!

Re bras - once we were down to a morning and a night feed, which I did in my nightie, didn't need feeding bras any more (hurrah!!). You may find you need to go back into a smaller size once you have cut right down - I just went back into my pre-pregnancy bras.

Meant to say also that when you are feeding like this (twice a day) it is fine to leave your child for a couple of nights/a weekend without a feed and go back to feeding when you get back.
I did this several times and it worked well and it was good to be able to get away with DH.

Thanks for the comments: why are feeding bras so bad? Doesn;t help that they aren't underwired and my F/G cups neeeeeeeeed the support

TBH I'm hoping that bfing will tail off by itself some time in the second year, but will see how things go. I find there's a lot of info about starting up but not much about keeping going (esp past 6 months - everyone seems to expect that I'll be stopping soon)

that's good to know Pannacotta: I thought I'd have to carry on every day to keep up supply (then again if supply did tail off it wouldn't be the end of the world)

Your supply is so well established by then it can take a break of up to a few days I think (two days was fine for me, didn't try longer).
Agree on the bras, def a business opportunity there for good/supportive bfeeding bras