Daily Mail article on extended breastfeeding

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Here. But you know what it says, and you already know what the comments say too....

See this, this is me yawning this is

TBH I was surprised how positive it was!

Ann Sinnott is joining us for a web chat later this month

One of the women in the article goes on about bfing her son to the age of 6 but then says that there are negative reactions to feeding children over 8. And the relevance is?

I think there is a big difference in bfing a young child under the age of 8 compared to feeding a child coming up to adolescence.

Yes, Driven, I was quite surprised too actually. Not too bad for the DM.

However, I am also yawnning at the comments which are bloody crap.

this wasn't as bad as I thought it would be coming from the DM. comments are the typical crap you would expect of its readers though.

Am pmsl laughing at

"um no, actually it isnt. When was the last time you looked into a field and saw a fully grown cow / sheep suckling on its mother?"

since when was a 4 year old fully grown ?

I would be interested to see how many of the naysayers are quite happy to feed their children cows' milk

that was actually really quite balanced i thought. i am a big pro bfing 'zealot' i have been called on here , but i do have the notion in my mind that 'once they can ask for it, its too old,'. this is entirely cultural, i know, but i can't help it. it is my instinctive reaction (in fact it probably has nothing to do with instinct, but YKWIM).

i find pictures of normal people who have breastfed older children, like that one in the article fascinating because it totally challenges my assumptions. and olden day pictures too... there are some on that facebook group - bfing not obscene or something...

so actually i think this article is a good thing.

yes, not too bad
Will I be odd in 6 months time then to be WOHM FT and bf a 3yo?

I liked it fairly well balanced and promotes Ann's excellent book.

Ruby it's interesting, because I felt like that too. For me it only really changed when my own DS was a toddler and I suddenly realised that he was in that age, he could walk and talk, but it didn't feel wrong to still be breastfeeding him, because he hadn't suddenly got to that stage - it was just a continuation of feeding him when he was a baby. And nursing a toddler is so different to nursing a baby anyway, now I look back. It would be odd to breastfeed a toddler in the same way as a baby (ie for an entire food source, frequently during the day and at night) - it's more of a cuddle than a feed, if that makes sense.

We should play comments bingo with these bf articles - might be bf 'in public', might bf bf beyond babyhood, might be anything:

• someone compares breastfeeding to urination? CHECK
• someone thinks that older kids have breastmilk and nothing else and says they should be on solid food? CHECK
• someone says they were formula fed and have never had a day's illness in their life? CHECK
• someone says it's child abuse? CHECK
• someone says the mother is doing it for her own benefit? CHECK
• someone says breastfeeding is fine but the mother should wear a shawl/cloth/burka? CHECK
• someone says the very idea of breastfeeding makes them feel sick? CHECK
• someone says 'bitty'? CHECK

All these and many more are written as if they are the very first time anyone has dared write these gems down....it's boring, silly and actually, I think, not very representative of most people's thoughts.

Haha, yes I like the idea of comments bingo.

How about:

"I am all for breastfeeding BUT..."
"They change the guidelines all the time."
"The mothers just want to keep their children babies"
"Once they can ask for it, they are too old"
Reference to breastfeeding mother "wopping out" her breast(s) (Bonus points if the phrase "all over the place" is included)
Some reference to the breastfeeding mafia, gestapo or nazis.

Also any comment along the lines of husbands i.e. 'those poor husbands being sidelined by their wife's determination to breastfeed' comments.

LOL, what about....

1. It just isn't natural/normal
2. My breasts/tits belong to my man
3. Those WHO guidelines only cover third world babies
4. You are just avoiding sexual relations with your husband
5. Breastmilk has no nutritional value past

don't forget "Why can't they just express milk into a bottle or give formula instead of doing it in public"

And another bit of twaddle:
Children who are breastfed are indulged and emotionally dependent, and in control of the mother.

I did extended bfing. I think it gives DCs a fantastic foundation to be confident of having their emotional and nutritional needs met all at the same time. I thought of it as refueling for the DCs.

One DD and her best friend in Kindergarten used to reminisce together fondly about their individual bfing days. I overheard their conversations many times in the the car.

"Children who are breastfed are indulged and emotionally dependent"

LOL, This will explain why I sit at the mother and toddler group with a cup of tea and my 'clingy breastfed children' playing at the other side of room without a backward glance.

"All the women who spoke to the Mail either work from home - as did Sinnott - or are self-employed. Most mothers would wince at the prospect of having to express and store milk in the workplace."

Or at least, the ones who's contribution they decided to include do.......

I was interviewed for this at some length, over the phone and via email. I refused to be photographed posing with my girls as DP is a bit prickly about anonymity etc. I was put under a lot of pressure to be photographed, preferably in a "breastfeeding pose", but wouldn't budge, and despite the reporters assertion that the editors loved what I had said and really wanted to include it and were happy to use it without a picture etc etc, it seems that without a nice controversial picture and because I don't fit the "SAHM/sandal wearing" image (notice one of the women makes essential oils or something? ) it seems my input wasn't needed!

Uh huh!!

When they played together, they used to pretend they were bfing, using their Barbie dolls. They knew what boobs were meant for...

Well I am a real screwball being a FT WOHM who is tandem feeding a nearly 5yo and a 18mo old, expressing milk at work till they stopped drinking the stuff at nursery.

Why doesn't it surprise me at all that they didn't quote her.

Green Monkies if stories like this aren't accompanied by pictures then people tend to think they're made up - which is why it's so important to get subjects photographed.