Milkaholic!

[susanmt]

My ds is (amazingly) now 9 months and still breastfed - he takes a bottle from his cjildminder reluctantly but totally refuses in our house - this is a boy who likes his milk direct!
We had a nice little way organised, a great big feed/cuddle first thing in the morning, a mid morning, mid afternoon and bedtime. But he had a cold and is teething and now we are back to feeding on demand. Not that I mind!! He will be my last baby and so I know I am going to cry buckets when I finally stop. But I don't know anyone else who is still demand feeding at 9 months and wondered if it is usual at this age. Dd wasn't as interested and quite happily had her times, but he is crawling over to me and trying to climb up and feed. I know there are a lot of long term breastfeeders on Mumsnet and just wanted to hear from some who did things the same as me. Of course I am already getting the 'Oh you're STILL bf' comments from some people, but I can rise above it, I can, I can!!
Thanks.

Susanmt, you're not alone! My ds is 7mo, started solids at 6mo and is still demand fed (although he is so busy crawling around he doesn't demand much by day - different story by night but that's another story). Having been through all the snide anti-bf comments with dd this time people don't seem to comment so much as by now they just think I'm odd :-)

Susanmt, my ds (11 months) is bottle fed but when he is ill we have a similar thing - he goes off his solids and we are back to milk feeding on demand. When he is better we seem to get back into the usual routine quite easily (although I may eat my words - he has a terrible cold this week and hasn't eaten solids since Tuesday!).

HTH

I used to bf after meals, at bedtime and so on but also when my babies wanted a feed at other times. It's such a fanatsic comfort to them that I wasn't going to deny them, plus it was so easy to do.

My 18 month old is only just moving away from feeding on demand - he walks up, says 'boob' and starts pulling at my clothes. I had hoped he would start to go off the idea himself but he isn't, so I'm trying to cut him back to morning, evening and one other. The little boy up the road at 15 months is the same way. I'm going to aim to have him weaned by Xmas. I've never had any comments about it - apart from dh saying he didn't think he should be fed while wearing welly boots!

susanmt - I find it odd that people should still question you breastfeeding when your baby is 9 months when a baby's main source of nutrition for the first year is milk. The WHO guidelines state up to 2 years. What do these people think you should do give him formula?

LizP - my son is nearly 40 months, yes 40 (I had to count it up) and still 'demands' although I do refuse particularly in the middle of mums and toddlers (fortunatley no-one has noticed). He mostly wants it if he is tired/bored and a lot of it is attention seeking because dd is still being fed so much. I give in because I feel sorry for him being left out but hten again he did have me to himself for a long time. It isn't easy to know what to do for the best.

I think around 18 months I put some restrictions on where/when. It did come in useful if he was ever sick (which wasn't often) but in retrospect I didn't want it to go on this long.

DS2 is only 6 months and I'm already getting comments. 'oh, you're STILL b/feeding, don't you feel you need your body back now?' !!!!!!