Why do people feel BF beyong 12 months is more about the mother than the baby - genuinely interested.

[fruitstick]

Someone said this to me recently - that feeding beyond a year has more to do with the emotional needs of the mother than the needs of the baby.

I didn't particularly question it at the time as I've heard it so often over the years but really - why do people think this?

I am still BF DS2 at 11 months. I BF DS1 for 7 months then stopped. I planned to do the same with DS2 but just carried on. I intended to carry on until 12 months but I may carry on again.

But why would that be for my benefit not DSs?

It may not be about nutrition at that point but so little of the food we consume is (I wouldn't eat nearly so many biscuits if that were so).

And also, even if it were true, it implies that mothers are only allowed to do things that involve an element of self sacrifice.

This isn't intended to be a 'aren't they awful' thread. I am genuinely interested why people think that breastfeeding beyond 12 months no longer benefits the child.

presumably, after 9 months their immune system is already fairly robust due to the amount of crap they pick up of the floor and put in their mouths

omaoma i'd love to know what (if any) actual effects of feeding for years are. if it was too bad then evolution would have done something about it i expect.

people are fearful of bf in general and once babies get past an actual helpless stage it is much easier to start proselytising.

and saying it is about the mother is only one of the platforms....

Omaoma, I'd get a new osteopath if i were you.Sounds like he is acting well outof his capacity.
What a load of shite.

I stopped bf ds at 14 months. I can tell you that stopping was all about me (well actually, all about dh & my mum and all my friends and everyone else that started getting really antsy about my bf after about 12 months, and I wasn't up to telling them all to go to hell as I should have).

I'll tell you who it wasn't about. It absolutely wasn't about ds who would have been more than happy to carry on.

Don't know how the "eeeeeew it's not right" mob square that one but I suspect, as a previous poster suggested, that it's just to fit in with the ff "norm".

(I can't really get my head round "it's not right once they can ask for it" btw. I used to think that too - probably because I'd heard it said so often, but now I can see it's so obviously a completely meaningless, arbitrary statement. Babies "ask" for it from day one, but somehow once they can put it into words it's weird? )

I was going to reply with something like: People probably believe that a mother wants to suffocate her child with her mothering and own emotional neediness resulting in her forcing the child to breastfeed for longer than the child could possibly want to...
But I think I'll go with plonker's answer.

omanoma, not even sure you are right about 'droopy tits' as you so nicely put it. Once a child is a toddler, they bf so little, breasts do not get engorged at all.

I only know of health benefits to the mother of long term bf-ing (particularly in reducing risk of cancer and osteoporosis), no deleterious effects AFAIK.

And your osteo is talking out of his proverbial ...

oh i meant on the mother, not the child. of course the child gets benefits of milk, as does mother of production. but there may be something about long term release of hormones which i'd like to know about.

i also have many questions about breast size and bra buying. we need an expert here.

"Droopy tits" are caused by pregnancy not bf. According to a study by the American Association of Plastic Surgeons.

apparently it's pregnancy that causes droopy breasts, not breastfeeding!

i am not sure i believe the assocation of plastic surgeons. everyone who gets pg could therefore get droopy tits whereas people who bf is rather a smaller pool of potential plastic surgees.

I know Shona - it's probably because I've never even been close to being in that position. I don't mean to say I would judge anyone else and I certainly wouldn't want to cause offence - it's just a personal feeling for me just now because it's so far beyond my own experience. If this one works out better I'm sure I'll feel quite differently.

unfortunately

hmm fishie, you could be onto something there!!!

sorry sheepie that was meant for my post not yours!

i don't think there can be any huge drawbacks to natural term breastfeeding, because otherwise we would see evidence of this in places where it's the norm

i do wonder about subsequent children, tandem nursing etc. oh how i long for a locked mn topic to talk about this properly because it just isn't safe here.

well... fishie: just to play devil's advocate, the evolution argument re it not causing any harm to the mother isn't really scientific is it?! as long as the benefits of long-term breastfeeding outweighed any disadvantage in the end it would still be an inherited trait. doesn't mean to say there aren't disadvantages for the mother... wouldn't it be lovely if somebody did a longt-erm scientific study on this, as with everything to do with modern childbirth, but there you go...

Yes, someone on here expressed it very well once: you don't set out to bf a toddler. You're just bf your baby who's a day old, a week old, a month old, a year old....and your child's only ever one day older than they were the day before so it's a gradual thing. Far less natural to suddenly have an arbitrary date where you stop.

Obviously if the mother wants to stop or the child wants to stop then that's a completely different thing.

I think one of the big advantages (of natural term bf) is that it tends to space children in a way that wouldn't happen if the mother stopped earlier.

Can't remember the spacings, but in societies where resources are scarce, smaller families that you can feed are more efficient than large families where children starve to death.

There have been studies on this but I can't remember where

fishie I don't see a reason not to talk about it - people are perfectly capable of having a reasoned debate, especially if the thread is in this section as opposed to, say, AIBU.

I don't think that tandem nursing is detrimental, because it is possible to breastfeed twins and even triplets from newborn which must be much more demanding on the body than feeding a newborn and toddler. I don't know though, I am happy to be proved wrong

thisisyesterday, thank you for answering my question.

I particularly liked the cheap shot (really though I think you could have tried a bit harder).

eh? wasn't aware that i had answered a question by anyone, will go back and re-read.

think you may have misinterpreted though

oh ok, about the recommendations of how long to feed?

i have absolutely no idea what you're on about re: cheap shot... do enlighten me please