So perhaps we should be breastfeeding for 7 years?

[ThomasTankEngine]

See here

[puffylovett]

Terramum - Re 'Dr Carlos Gonzales mentions the current guidlines in his book "My child won't eat" & makes an observation that things seem to be slowly creeping back to the recommendations at the turn of the last century which was excl bfing until 1 yr....I know a few people who have consciously done this & a couple who have done it because their children simply refused all solids before 12 months. '

thts really amazing actually. I find it quite interesting that babies go through these growth spurts where the norm is to then wean them (ie the unpublicized 4 month spurt), and I know that they all usually have a spurt at 6 months. I wonder what would happen if we just saw that spurt through, wether they would then continue to feed as they had been pre spurt ? or wether at that point they start conscioualy reaching for food ? did your friends children 'suffer' as a result of delayed weaning ? ie the opinion about iron shortage in breast milk after 6 months..

if you think that the article talks about monkeys breastfeeding for 4 yrs - do they also eat bananas too or whatever it is they eat !! what is a monkeys lifespan - ie if they only live for 16 years, they breastfeed for a quarter of their life. Whereas we humans only bf for sometimes 6 months which barely even registers as a percentage of our total lifespan.

my LO is only 5 months but i'm already feeling external pressure to wean him. 1 week ago i wouldn't have said he is ready, but now i feel as tho i'm looking for signs - when my gut instinct should be to follow his signs for when he's ready for solid food.

maybe we should start a new thread instead of hijacking this one ! Sorry OP

[bcsnowpea]

I suppose whether we bf or ff, do it for 6 months or 7 years, the important thing is that we're at least feeding our kids

[berolina]

Thomas, yes, the body switches over to colostrum (or at least gears up to producing it) at some point in later pg. I am 34 weeks pg and bf my ds, and have been told by a gynaecologist that if you tandem feed the newborn gets the mature milk and no colostrum - 'I've looked it up' . Not True.

[NadineBaggott]

We may be related but we are NOT chimpanzees. We don't swing from trees and have to go foraging for food. Chimps don't go to school or learn to use a knife and fork etc, etc, etc.

Humans have evolved differently, you may not like where some of that evolvement has led us but there you are.

[beansprout]

I'm pretty damn close to being a chimp and dh certainly is

[ThomasTankEngine]

Thanks berolina. Thats one smart system.

[NadineBaggott]

have you got prehensile feet then?

[Katy44]

puffylovett, have you looked into baby led weaning? Sorry if you know all this already, but your last post makes it sound like you'd be interested Aitch's BLW blog

On a personal note, I wanted to breastfeed from as soon as I started ttc. I assumed I would stop at about 6 months - that seemed to be the done thing. I have no idea when I'll stop but now I'd like to carry on as long as the baby wants to, I have no idea why I thought I would wake up one morning, and think - this is the day to stop.

[terramum]

My DS doesn't go to school he is Home educated...does that make him a chimp?

[puffylovett]

aren't all little boys chimps ? mine definietly resembles a monkey !!!

as for my feet, they are a bit chimp like hee hee hee espeically when haven't cut toenails for a while

katy44 def doing blw, have read all of aitchs blog and it's brill, can't wait to start !

[whomovedmychocolate]

Hang on a cotton picking minute - I'm still bfing DD who is nearly ten months and I'm an extended breastfeed????

I thought I was just a normal mum!

Disclaimer - I don't give a hoot what you feed your baby, formula or bm. But I would point out that you are what you eat and personally I don't claim to have bovine DNA.

[puffylovett]

lol at disclaimer, whomovedmychoc !

[welliemum]

Mmmm... evolution.

There's a whole field of animal behaviour that looks at energy budgets (this might not be the correct term, by the way, I'm just vaguely recalling something I've read).

The idea is that an animal will only have so much energy and it obviously needs to prioritise the survival of its young. So there are different strategies available, and animals will tend to use the one which is most energy-efficient: wasteful organisms don't survive.

So, for example, a duck might hatch 10 ducklings but have only 2 survive to adulthood. That seems wasteful but it's OK because the duck doesn't really invest all that much energy into raising and feeding ducklings, it's all a bit sink-or-swim in the duck world.

But primates (both human and non-human) have a strategy which is very different: they have far fewer offspring but invest a HUGE amount of energy into raising them and keeping them safe. Does it work? Yes, clearly, it's been working for millions of years and the most intelligent primate is one of the most successful organisms on the planet.

Sooooo..... finally welliemum approaches the point....

If we humans have the biological ability to breastfeed a 7 year old child, you can bet your bottom dollar there's a survival advantage to doing so, ie it's beneficial to either mother or child or both. If not, the waste of energy would have phased it out long ago.

I would guess that the survival advantage in bf a 7 year old in today's society is small. But the simple fact that it can be done implies very strongly that it's been beneficial in the past, and who knows - it could still be beneficial, but our society has made it nearly impossible ever to answer that question.

(I promise I didn't make this all up in the bath, but I'm no expert on this stuff - am hoping for a biologist to swing by and add some actual knowledge to my vague notions)

[purplemonkeydishwasher]

that's really interesting welliemum! i never thought of it like that before.

saying that, i;d still give my left boob for DS to self wean TODAY!!!

[Katy44]

Thought you'd know about it puffy
I'm dying to get started - as DS is a bit young do you think I can practice on DH??

[Oblomov]

I just had to come back to this thread.
I am sorry to stir it all up again.
But I was really upset by chasingsquireels comment about chocolatepeanut and her choice to not breastfeed, being selfish.
I bf ds. I always call harpsi, to any thread where bf advice is given.
But I just can't accept, that calling people who choose not to bf, selfish, is helping the cause.
We are all selfish. Selfish in wanting more children. Selfish so many ways. Don't really want to give examples - don't want to upset people - but e.g: From wanting another child, or wanting a child in the first place, wanting them to achieve things, wanting them to stop bf when we have had enough... at aged ... mths, 2 yrs, 3 yrs whatever......
I am sorry chasingsquirrels, but I felt I had to say this.

[beansprout]

V. interesting welliemum.

I'm sure there is a scientist somewhere who can provide a better insight than "that's a bit odd, that is."

[beansprout]

And calling people "odd" is not too helpful either.

[ChasingSquirrels]

but if you accept that we are all selfish in many ways (which I agree with and which is what I said about myself in wanting children - I certainly didn't do it for the good of the unborn child, or the human race, or anything apart from MY desire to have babies - ie me being selfish), then I don't understand what the problem is with pointing out that someone who came on a thread and critised other peoples choices and then COMPLAINED about being called selfish for her own choice did actually put herself first (by her own admission, and presumably for her own good reasons, but nonetheless doing so), and therefore was being selfish about it? I don't as a result of that choice have a dim view of her, I don't have any view - it is her choice.
Perhaps the use of the word is upsetting, in which case I am sorry, but I was not using it to upset and I did not chose the word in her original post, she did, I was using it in the literal meaning - ie to put ones self first.

[puffylovett]

Exactly welliemum. maybe there is a reason we are MEANT to bf for longer and have got too caught up in making babies grow b4 they should.

JUST MAYBE extended bf for lengthy yrs could help protect against cancer, heart disease, diabetes etc etc... maybe it teaches children to eat little and often until they're full which they then continue until adulthood which consequently means they won't end up obese and suffering from the above. hope am making sense, got a 5 mth old chewing my arm.

anyway my point is that nature always has a purpose and maybe we're just indoctrinated einto thinking extended bfing isn't natural

katie44 am sure dh would look great with a rice cake in one hand and a face smeared with raw avocado ! might inject a bit of spice in fact i may try it myself !!!

[SweetyDarling]

Evolution doesn't work that way Welliemum. Evolution would have only removed the ability to bf till 7 if it threatened the existance of the mother. For example we still have appendix (spl?) even though they are totally uneccesary and useless, because they don't pose a significant threat to our repoductive abilities as a population.

[SweetyDarling]

To clarify (think I was a bit vague there)...there is no survival advantage to having your appendix, but you till have one.

[welliemum]

Ahhh, SD, I beg to differ... the appendix is useless I agree, but it's disappearing: it's a vestigial remnant which we're losing because as omnivores we don't need it, and don't want to waste energy growing bits of bowel that aren't doing anything for us.

Presumably, eventually (if the human race survives that long) it'll disappear altogether.

I'm bf a toddler and constantly hungry and really battling to keep weight on, so I find it quite easy to imagine that bf a big child could threaten the health of the mother in a marginal situation where she was in any case just one step away from famine and starvation (as still is the case in some non-technological desert societies to this day).

The energy cost of bf a big child could be very significant and it's hard to imagine that this would go on for no particular reason, unless it was offset by a significant survival advantage for the child.

Just speculating, obviously, I don't know. It would be interesting to know what older children get from breastmilk actually. Calories? Specific nutrients? Immune factors? Has anyone looked at what's in the breastmilk of (very) extended bf-ers?

[upthefarawaytree]

I wouldn't want to breastfeed, bottlefeed or spoonfeed once a child is old enough for nursery.

[CHOCOLATEPEANUT]

Oblomov thanks for support

I have learned a valuable lesson this last few weeks on mn and that is not to make any remarks about bf. Its just too much of an emotional subject and at the wish of not wanting to offend anyone, anymore I am bowing out