Can you recommend some resources for info on extended breastfeeding as I feel I may need to defend my position?

[SnowOfHands]

It transpires that MIL feels there is 'no need to feed past 2 years' and 'you wonder whose benefit it is for'. I get on well with her and she is very supportive but I would like to discuss extended breastfeeding with her in a more knowledgable way.

DH has also admitted that he will support me as long as I want to continue but he does think it's 'weird'.

DD is 19mo and I would very much like to allow her to self wean.

There's the good old standard kellymom, although most of the information there is focused on breastfeeding between 12 and 24 months.

And Mothering Your Nursing Toddler is the most-recommended book on the subject.

Tell her to call me for an hour long lecture on the subject punctuated with 'none of your sodding business anyway' every fifteen seconds.

If you can speak/read French, this book about breastfeeding has the best quotation about extended breastfeeding in advanced societies that I have ever seen.

you are very tolerant with yourMIL

Anna, is there any chance you could translate the quote for interested non-Fr speakers?

MrsB - I don't have the book to hand right now (it's out on loan) and the exact wording escapes me but I will post it when I recover the book .

Thank you for your responses. I will order the book you recommended P&S. Anna, I don't know if my sketchy, A-Level French will stretch that far. We got as far as ordering a cafe au lait and commenting on the weather. Er, il pleut des cordes.

I do have a little voice in me that wants to scream out 'none of your business' but I think I have to be realistic. Chances are she has never known (or wittingly known) an extended bfer so I should offer her the chance to learn about it and perhaps change her attitude. Ultimately, I will continue to feed because it's the right thing for us but if I can find some literature that teaches her it's not a weird, yokel anomoly, then I'll feel more able to field any comments.

I'm a little more saddened that dh thinks it's weird but he supports me regardless.

My MIL has thought breastfeeding was weird all the way through.

Things have definitely improved. DS is 2.1 and had a high temperature. She arrived to find him breastfeeding peacefully. He looked very contented and it was obviously making him feel a little better. I was so shocked when she nodded approvingly and said "what a lucky thing it is you're still doing that!"

Wonders will never cease...this from the woman who went out and bought bottles and formula!

Over the last few years I've just nodded everytime she's mentioned weaning and repeated over and over again that it will be lovely when he decides he no longer wants it. I think she might have got the message now.

have you seen this post on my blog?

And there's also this - two leaflets, both aimed at grandparents

Good luck with it. I know there are people who consider it peculiar I still bf DS2 at nearly 3yo, but I consider it their problem (and it helps that DS2 is particularly vocal about how much he likes it on occasion, so nobody's in any doubt whose benefit it's for...!)

I have never really told anyone the "benefits" from a defensive position, but more have done a drip drip drip thing on them! DS is three now, and the family seem to have given up!

So, if anyone said to me, "oh he seems so content" I would say, "oh yes, he is, isn't he. i have read that breastfeeding really helps them to be content" etc etc for every positive thing they say that you think you could get away with attributing to natural term breastfeeding.

I like the positive drip drip approach!

hinker, have added your blog to my favourites and will peruse at length tomorrow morning whilst dd has her first feed of the day.

I have just had a look at the Wiltshire one hunker. That is the first leaflet of it's type which is starting to lean towards the risks of formula, rather than the "benefits" of breastfeeding.

It is much more realistic than some of the wishy washy pish I have seen.

Or rather, the first leaflet of it's type that I have seen... is what I meant to say!

To be fair to your MIL, it's good that she supports it up to two years. That alone is unusual enough these days.

comfort vs nutrition

thanks for this thread

I am bookmarking all of this.

I was thinking about it this morning. It's ludicrous to support and accept feeding till 2 but not afterwards. As the clock chimes midnight on their 2nd birthday, does the act shed its natural state and become abhorrent? How strange.

DH is reading everything over my shoulder.

nice to see that 2nd leaflet's from my local trust!