Nell McAndrew article on extended breastfeeding

[treacletart]

here

Oh my god, why did I read the mail comments!!

Is it just me that can now not get onto the mail website? I have just submitted a comment..

How lovely. My ds2 is the same age and still bf. I still do that feed in the night too, but about to drop it (thanks Nell for the tip!)

I cant read your comment either .

Perhaps a positive story has sent it into shock

oo how exciting you can rate the mail comments! Nice to see that most of the "urgh, bitty" comments have received lots of negatives

"While two-thirds of mothers solely or partially breastfeed their babies for the first year, doing so after a child's first birthday remains rare." 9from the DM artile.

I'm interested in where they got that statistic? I thought the figures for breastfeeding beyond a few weeks were well below that.

Great article. She's breastfeeding and co-sleeping. Ooh, what a hippy!!

Weird, and wrong, stats from the Mail.

15 per cent of mothers in England and Wales are bf at nine mths (Infant Feeding 2005).

We have no official stats at a year, AFAIK, and if we did, it definitely wouldn;t be two thirds.

My doctor didn't ask or note down that I was feeding DS at 6 weeks, and I haven't seen a HV since before 12 weeks so they have no idea I was feeding DS at 6 months!

Do they HAVE to note the method of feeding? Is it a requirement? How on earth do they get the figures if not everybody sees HV? I know lots who don't see a HV past 3 or 4 months.

Stretch, there is an official 5-yearly survey of thousands of mothers in the UK. They can't ask everyone! It's a good survey.

I think what they may be referring to is mothers who bf for all or some of the first year, ie about 2/3 of women in the UK initiate breastfeeding (actually I thought it was slightly more than that, but I think 2/3 is not far off, is it?)

They don't mean the number of women who partially feed for one year, they mean the number of women who feed for all or part of that time.

But I agree the sloppy phrasing makes it ambiguous.

I've always loved Nell- her excercise dvds are seriously hardcore. Think it's a bloody fab article, tells it like it is

I do like Nell. She's lovely and this article has made me . Co-sleeping, extended bfing and not yet leaving dc overnight. She's me really. Except I look like a bag of spanners. But you know, otherwise.

How kind of the DM to print a picture of Nell showing exactly what they think her tits are for

Yay to Nell though. She's my new hero. Can we have some official MN saints and give them a blue plaque and a lifetime supply of Quinoa or summat?

Hey Nell, If you are a mumsnetter in disguise somewhere you should give yourself a big pat on the back for a lovely, well-written article. Your son sounds like he's a lucky boy!

lovely article. i have a crush on her now.

although, nell, if you're reading - wtf was that marrying dale winton programme all about?

PMSL at the Daily Mail. It's like judgmental ill-informed bingo reading their comments.

I got points for 'lots of things are natural but I don't do them in public', 'she's just doing it for herself' and 'he'll be bullied'. It cheers me enormously to see them trotting out the same old nonsense.

Good down to earth article! Will stop taking the piss of her saying 'bloated' on the yog ad now.

bumping for the evening shift..

Well my comment is still not up there! I don't know why, although I did use a made up name and put that my county was Londonshire!!

What a lovely, realistic article.

She must be an MNer - go on - out yourself