Took dds to a party this afternoon. Lovely mum who has a 6 week old baby invited dh and I back for a glass of wine afterwards. Anyway ... to cut a long story short, she's a practising midwife, and the conversation went on to breastfeeding. It happened 'cos her daughter had to be 'wet wrapped' (I'm not sure what that is, btw), and the mother holding the party brought out some photos of when her daughter was in the same boat.
Anyhow ... the point of all of this is that the m/f said she b/f her child til she was 21/2 - apparently everyone asked her why and she simply said 'because it suits us'. I then tried to explain how awful I felt, having successfully b/f dd1 but found it impossible with dd2 - not like I didn't know how to do it, simply that it just wasn't working.
And this was the most amazing thing for me ... she's the first professional I've spoken to (and believe me I've pondered/worried about it since dd2 was born)who's said that each baby/mother, each mother/baby is different, and that some women can't necessarily breastfeed. Whooooooa! I wonder if she knew how many women wanted to hear that, because I certainly never did.
Apologies to all of you who say anyone can, please don't take this the wrong way, it's just that after all these years someone saying that finally made me feel better. And I hope it does for anyone else that has to go through that, too.