So perhaps we should be breastfeeding for 7 years?

[ThomasTankEngine]

See here

[tiktok]

Razia, correct. The breastmilk becomes colostrum for the newborn.

[casbie]

this might be an added incentive for the older child to wean?

[puffylovett]

SD - no, they tend to drink / eat loads of soya don't they - and there is MUCH less incidence of cancer / heart disease / diabetes.

but then they also have a diet v high in veg i think

razian - i think i read some info on tandem feeding on an archived thread but can't remember how it works ! will see if can find info for you

[Razian]

Hi, sorry to butt in just been reading this thread as pretty interesting but had a question re tandem feeding:

How can bm be appropriate to both children? Presumably the newborn must win over so the other child is back to getting newborn milk?

Sorry - as you were!!

[SweetyDarling]

Puffy - there are lots of cultures that don't drink cows milk, so I wonder if studies have been done? I think it's not commonly drunk in Japan?

[puffylovett]

perhaps they are more potent - appar ently the fat, calcium and protein content increases past yr 1, as do the immune boosting elements. v fascinating article !

heres another question - if humans are designed to drink human milk and most babies self wean around 2-4 yrs old, i wonder what woulod happen if they then didn't dri0nk cows
milk ? wether that would reduce the risk of obtaining certain cancers in the first place ?

god talk about thinking outside the box, ad i thought i was baby brained !!!

[SweetyDarling]

IIjjk, thanks - great article.
I knew that bf was benficial in reducing risk of certain cancers, but was confused by the idea that the mother was somehow producing "anti-bodies" to it. Facinating to see they have isolated the particular protein!
I wonder if these proteins/sugars etc are present in useful quantities at all stages of bf?

[casbie]

my dd is now 25 months and is loosing the 'knack' of bf. we are only feeding during the night (which she loves). i am assuming that soon, she physically won't be able to do it and then we'll stop.


love the thread - everyone on here is very open minded!

[harpsichordcarrier]

actually I didn't find tandem feeding in the least tiring. it was lovely actually. bf a toddler is v different from bf a newborn, and like Eulalia I found it helped with the sibling transitioning/bonding i.e. no jealousy at all.
dealing with the bitty/urgh/yuk bullshit: now that's tiring

[bigmouthstrikesagain]

I tandem fed as got pg when ds was 11m so cont to feed him throughout pg and when dd was born we continued for a month or so - but the gaps btwn feds became increasingly wide and one evening ds seemed to have forgotten how to latch on. He was 22m - I felt a mix of sadness and relief.

Still feeding dd at 16 m and she is showing no signs of wanting to stop.

[Eulalia]

Tandem feeding is not exhausting as the older child doesn't feed much. I found it helped enormously with jealousy issues when the next baby came along as the older one still feels included. Definately wouldn't do it in public and its not necessary by then. Rarely feed my 2 year old in public now but still lots at home.

[FrannyandZooey]

Not all extended breastfeeders and tandem feeders do it in public, and many don't talk about it (in part because of the "weirdy" "odd" attitudes). Many older children only feed morning and night, or only at home. You probably do know some tandem feeders

[ThomasTankEngine]

I've not met anyone who has tandem fed. Maybe i'm moving in the wrong circles.

[ThomasTankEngine]

Hi rainbow83. Do you mind me asking where you're from? And why do you think its rare in the uk?
And does anyone feed 3 children at once in your culture?

[FrannyandZooey]

Sweety, I would feel it was odd to continue to breastfeed my child after he or I no longer wished to continue.

[rainbow83]

Hi, thomas, in my culture its very normal to tandem feed and many , many mothers i personally know tandem feed and feed until / after the next baby comes along.

[Spidermama]

I've always breastfed until my next baby came along. I've been bf-ing without a break for four kids and 9 years now.

Ooh ooh, ah ah.
< scrapes knuckles along floor. >

[ThomasTankEngine]

I don't know, but suspect that previously (pre 100 years ago) women breastfed until the next baby came along. Otherwise a lot of milk needs to be produced and nutrients may well have been hard to come by.

Nowadays it is still unusual to tandem feed, even in a society where there are stacks of nutrients and calories available.

I wonder how long those that have tandem fed have kept going on average? It must be tiring (and I've always thought, very impressive)
Anyone with any experience about?

[puffylovett]

agree re genetic predisposition. However i also think that if the gut is the first line of defence for the immune system, bm lines the gut in a specific way (bear with me, baby brained and can't remember where i've read half this stuff but some of it on MN).

Most people who eat well have usually had the range of childhood illnesses (ear infections, tonsilitis et al) that are usually treated with anitbiotics.

Antibiotics kill off the good bacteria in the gut along with the bad bacteria causing the infection. Prolonged use of anti-b's (and indeed lots of other drugs, even such as paracetamol) will put additional stress on the immune system due to the reduced number of good bacteria in the gut to help fight infection and stop the body from digesting nutrients etc.

This then means the immune system doesn't function normally and so that person becoes susceptible to colds, flus, coughs etc etc.

wehre cancer etc is concerned, yes I don't know wether a mother would be capable of creating antibodies for her child - but it does protetc against childhood cancers, and also against uterine and breast cancer in the mother.

God i wasn't intending to write an essay !!!! So, my point is i wonder if a bf child who is not exposed to the usual range of drugs and is eating well will be able to 'resist' gentically predisposed illnesses - and bm could indeed perhaps help a child with leukaemia etc purely by helping to boost the immune system as it contains valuable pro & pre biotics, helping the gut to digest foods efficiently and the body to uptake nutrients and use in the fight against the cancer.

phew !! hope i've made a bit of sense ? in my twisted thinking !!!

[lljkk]

SweetDarling, being breastfed dramatically reduces the chances of a baby getting leukemia (Babycentre article), and at least one study reckoned also women who were themselves breastfed are also less likely to get breast cancer.

Add breastmilk to a petri dish with human cancer cells in it, the cells stop dividing and die off...(!)

As the article says, breastmilk is the only foodstuff that has developed under evolutionary pressure to make humans more healthy.

[Eulalia]

Have avoided this thread but to answer question about it being odd. hmmm hard to say but dd age 5 still wants and I let her although it does feel a bit odd and annoying. It's such a gradual thing and it depends on the child. I last 'fed' ds1 when he was 6 (can't actually remember the last occasion) but at that age he was much more gentle than a struggling tugging toddler like my ds2 who is aged 2. If you let them stop on their own then they don't actually want to eventually so there is definately no risk of it going on for years and years. ds1 actually pretty much stopped at age 5 but did it occasionally (ie weeks apart after that). As I say its very gradual and they just grow out of it on their own. Certainly never heard of a child over 8 even that girl on the Extra-ordinary Breastfeeding programme stopped hten. And oh yes they do eventually forget how to do it properly anyway so lose interest.

[Pruners]

Message withdrawn

[SweetyDarling]

Can I ask a question of the extended Bfers...and this is not meant to sound antagonistic in any way.
I know we all get annoyed about stupid use of the "bitty" reference every time this topic comes up, bc it is obviously designed to make extended bfing look odd and weird, but is there an age when you would feel that it WAS odd to continue bfing your child?
Please don't flame me

[Reallytired]

I breastfed my son for 33 months and I had no periods for 33 months! It was wonderful.

Prehaps its worth breastfeeding for seven years to avoid periods.

[SweetyDarling]

But do you even make antibodies to cancer? It's not a bacterial or viral infection.