Today, I took my one-year-old DS to the GP at hospital because he was hot again in the night. He has an ear infection, poor love, as well as teething what seems to be a forest of teeth at once.
However, that's not the point of this post.
The GP I saw there asked if he was eating and drinking - I told him I was still breastfeeding and he looked at me as if I'd grown another head there and then on the spot.
Then he said, "Why?! I think six months is quite enough."
To which I replied, very calmly, that the World Health Organisation's guidelines suggested breastfeeding until at least two. He looked amazed, shrugged and got on with examining DS.
Just before we left, he said that DS should be getting enough from solids and I really didn't need to keep breastfeeding him. So I said that a child's immune system didn't mature until they were about seven (laughingly said I didn't expect to still be feeding DS then), so breastfeeding a one-year-old was a good plan. Then he said, "But they do bite though" - as if I was happily letting DS munch on my nipples whenever he felt like it! I reassured him that DS didn't bite and that he enjoyed breastfeeding - I wasn't just doing it because I wanted to.
Should I have said more?! I'm SO shocked to have come face-to-face with this total ignorance! If I wasn't so confident that I was doing the right thing...it's not just support at the beginning of breastfeeding that needs addressing, obviously!