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When To Stop Breast Feeding

I think that either the five year old probably felt a bit left out with all the attention being given to the new baby or had regressed (this is very common, for example if a child is ill or has had some other trauma) because of the stress of the arrival of the new baby.
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:eek: OMG.

Sorry HAARP but that sounds like psycho babble to me: 'stress', 'trauma', 'regression' etc. Kids pick up on that kind of language and start playing to it. They end up as transparently - manipulative and overly emotional adults.

If the child shows signs of needing attention then maybe give it attention. But give it APPROPRIATE attention. Breast feeding a 5 year old, because it acts like a baby, isn't appropriate.

Sometimes, I think, it is also appropriate to ignore them. They shouldn't be allowed to become attention - seeking and needy.
 
alb - have you ever seen a kid?
yes, they are little irrational beings. with a will of their own that not always conforms to the grownups' standards... you have to deal with that (and with them)
 
I know exactly what the little sods are like. I actually used to be one.
 
I just know that one of my greatest pleasures is nuzzling a breast or two (when appropriate, obviously) and if I had an image of being 5/8/10/whatever and sucking on my mother's tit it'd put me right off my stroke. I think I'd have got on the 'other bus' if I had that picture running about in my head.

Bleeeeeaagh!
 
And another thing !

My daughter was only 6 months old an she did'nt know anything about 'psycho babble' but that didn't stop her 'regressing' and wanting no food or juice only breast milk when she got ill !
 
My daughter was only 6 months old an she did'nt know anything about 'psycho babble' but that didn't stop her 'regressing' and wanting no food or juice only breast milk when she got ill !
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6 months. But you were talking about a 5 year old regressing and wanting breast milk. Completely different.

I think it somewhat odd that you (and some of the witch doctors) describe this as 'regression'. It isn't regression - not in any normal sense of that word.
 
HAARP said:
Piscez has a good point.

Sorry to be sexist, but I expect the majority of you on this thread are men - and perhaps you feel a bit left out like the five year old in question ? ;)
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..and that can happen, believe me, that can happen.....:rolleyes:
 
Giving this old chestnut a bump because of this:
Extraordinary Breastfeeding
Channel 4, Wednesday 1 February, 9pm

Everyone knows that breast is best, but for how long? The World Health Organisation recommends that all children are breastfed until at least two years. In Britain we think that's downright weird. But this forthright, revealing and heart-warming film meets a group of women who believe in continuing to breastfeed for as long as their children want.

Veronika is still breastfeeding her seven-year-old daughter, while her eldest has asked if she can be breastfed as a present for her tenth birthday. Dolores is breastfeeding her son, who is nearly four. Dolores and her husband are about to adopt a little girl from China and her greatest wish is to breastfeed her adopted daughter. Thirty-eight-year-old Sophie is tandem-feeding two-year-old twins Zac and Molly on demand, and is feeling the strain. And Kirsty, who works for an organisation that helps teach young mums how to breastfeed, is breastfeeding her daughter at nearly two and is very concerned that new laws could prevent breastfeeding in public places.

Our You Ask feature below contains advice for a mother who is receiving criticism about breastfeeding her two-year-old child. There are links within the feature to websites that offer further support and information.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'How can I deal with criticism at breastfeeding my two-year-old?'
Q: My little boy Luke has just had his second birthday. When he was tiny, I thought I'd end breastfeeding at around 9-12 months, but he's never shown signs of wanting to stop and still asks for 'Mummy milk' three or four times a day. Trouble is, so many people think what I'm doing is unnatural. I'm often criticised by total strangers if I feed Luke in public, and my Dad always says, 'Surely you're not still feeding that child!'. I'd be happy to go on until Luke gives up of his own accord, but I'm fed up with this barrage of criticism. Any suggestions?

Vanessa, 34


our online advisors reply:
In many cultures around the world, feeding a two-year-old would be seen as totally normal, but unfortunately in the West it goes against society's expectations.

There are several things you could try. To avoid hurtful comments completely, you could gradually switch to feeding Luke just once in the morning and once at bedtime, when there's no one else around, and give him other drinks from a cup during the day.

If you're criticised by a stranger who asks if you're still feeding, you could answer simply, 'Yes', or say that 'It works for us, but maybe you'd choose to do something different'. You'll find some other suggestions for dealing with unwanted comments on this website: www.lalecheleague.org/FAQ/criticism.html

If the person who's commenting is someone like your Dad, who's close to you and might be willing to listen, you could try explaining some of the benefits of extended breastfeeding. Tell your Dad, for instance, that the longer Luke drinks human milk, the longer he'll go on getting all the beneficial vitamins, enzymes and immune protection it provides. Toddlers who have breast milk are less likely to be ill than others. If they are sick, they will often only accept breast milk, which can help prevent dehydration.

Breastfeeding an older child also has a lot to do with showing love, and giving comfort. The strong bond it creates will help Luke to become more confident and independent, because he has not been forced off the breast before he is ready. As far as your own well-being goes, breastfeeding delays the return of fertility (although you still need to use contraception, even if your periods haven't re-started). This in turn reduces your lifetime exposure to oestrogen, which is linked to the development of some cancers. Breastfeeding is also kind to the planet, as there is no need to use powerful chemicals for sterilisation, or buy plastic bottles which end up in landfill.

If that's not enough to persuade him, you'll find plenty of other convincing reasons for extended breastfeeding on these sites:

Explanation of extended breastfeeding:
www.treehuggermums.co.uk/articles/breas ... rticle=107
An American mum's 10 good reasons for breastfeeding a toddler:
www.abm.me.uk/10toddler.htm
Managing breastfeeding if you return to work:
www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/breastf ... arbara.php
For more support and useful ideas, visit the Extended Breastfeeding Bulletin Board and chat to other mums who are breastfeeding older children: www.babycentre.co.uk/bbs/556010/. Or you could start up a chat thread on our Family forum here and see what tips other people can offer you.

Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of third party sites.

http://www.channel4.com/health/microsit ... reast.html
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The World Health Organisation recommends that all children are breastfed until at least two years.
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Two years?? That might be best for the health of the child, but what about the poor mother?

If a mother insists on giving the kids breastmilk, could she not at least give it to them in a cup?

The strong bond it creates will help Luke to become more confident and independent, because he has not been forced off the breast before he is ready.
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This sounds like crap to me, more likely he'll become a spoilt brat because his parents never say no to him.
 
Doing a poo is natural, doing it in a nappy is brilliant but I bet most would agree that there should be a time when a proper toilet is used.
Leave a kid alone and let it do what it wants, it may well want to wear a nappy when it is 8yrs old. That is not an excuse to let it though because it is inconvenient and really only appropriate for someone who can't walk or wipe or whatever.
So breastfeeding is natural but there is a time where it is not only inconvenient but embarressing [if you live in a society that has these standards you should teach your child this or it will be in trouble later on]. There is no NEED to breast feed an 8yr old, of course the kid enjoys it as it has been doing it since birth. What worries me is that the mothers seem to enjoy it too which should have absolutely no relevance. Breastfeeding isn't for mothers enjoyment, it is at the start for bonding and nutrition.
It is not the kids fault, its the mothers who should know better and should put a stop to it. We can't all go on and on with things we liked to do when we were children or the world would be full of nappy wearing, eye-poking, screaming, jumping, spinach throwing, thumb-sucking, crawling on all fours on the street, licking shopping trolley handles grown ups. Would you like a boss like that?
 
Unfortunately, our Society is so fractured, there's just not the social framework and peer support around for women to let each other know what is truly socially acceptable, about breast feeding, anymore.

Too much reliance on Corporate bottled milk regimes and neurosis over potty training discipline, by the looks of it. ;)
 
Extended nursing - sometimes there is a reason

As a mother who did nurse one of her children for an extended period of time, I feel the need to jump in here.
While I don't condone extended nursing for all children (and certainly not until the child is 8 years old, for gosh sakes) for some mothers and their children there are extenuating circumstances as to why nursing is extended. My younger son nursed until he was four. Now before most of you freak out, here is why:

  • - Z was and is multiply handicapped, with multiple health conditions.
    - Z was developmentally delayed by more than a year, and was the size of a much younger child.
    - Z's immune system was impaired due to his genetic syndrome, and he needed the additional immunity that breast milk provided.
    - Z had trouble eating and digesting some solid foods, and was facing a nasal feeding tube or gastric button for tube feeding to provide additional nutrition if he stopped nursing.
Z's pediatrician had grown up in Africa and recommended and supported extended nursing, especially in cases like Z's. He believed that children like Z needed the nursing for medical and developmental reasons. And he was right. Today at 12, Z is as healthy as a child with his syndrome could be, is normal sized, and is doing better than anyone ever expected.

I'm open to any questions you all may have; I'm not ashamed of having done what I could to help my child.

JandZmom
 
No need to be ashamed in your case, I'm sure most would agree. You had a concrete, medical justification for continuing to feed Z.

The primary subjects of this thread are people without a medical or clinical imperative - ie just keep feeding their kids until the latter can legally vote :? .
 
The primary subjects of this thread are people without a medical or clinical imperative - ie just keep feeding their kids until the latter can legally vote .
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Sorry if I sounded a bit defensive about it, but having nursed for so long, I think there needs to be a recognition that in some cases, it is appropriate for the child.

BUT, Breastfeeding long past the time when it's NOT appropriate to meet the needs of the child is just plain weird to me. Z's pediatrician and I closely monitored his situation. While I was willing to help Z for as long as he needed it, when he turned the corner health-wise and could eat more solid food, man, was I relieved to stop nursing him.

I also agree with prior posts that it's not wrong to let young pre-schoolers nurse a bit when mom brings a new baby home -- they'll usually only do it a few times, then their curiosity is satisfied. Mostly, they just want a snuggle and to know that mom is still available to them.

While I'm not sure that the other mothers previously described in this thread had sexualized their nursing experience, no mentally stable mother would want or need to continue nursing a healthy child past the start of school age.

So that I'm not a total thread-killer, here's a question to the group:
I've heard and even read where some men have nursed their children. Is this something you men would even consider doing?

JandZmom
 
Why I still breastfeed my eight-year-old girl

Published on 04/02/2006


by Phil Coleman

A PENRITH mum has appeared on national TV to explain why she is still breastfeeding her daughter who is nearly eight – and why she gave her older daughter breast milk as a ninth birthday present.

Veronika Robinson appeared on the Channel 4 programme Extraordinary Breastfeeding as a passionate advocate of allowing children to decided when they give up breast milk.

Mrs Robinson, a former journalist, her husband Paul, and their children, Bethany and Elizah, are all fans of organic food.

Elizah is approaching her eighth birthday and is not happy at the prospect of giving up her daily feed. “I don’t want to be weaned. I want to breastfeed for ever,” she said.

In the Channel 4 programme, broadcast on Wednesday, Mrs Robinson, 38, spoke frankly about her decision to defy convention.

She was one of several families interviewed after the World Health Organisation recommended that children should be breastfed until they are aged two. All share the belief that children should never be forcibly weaned.

While many people in the UK consider her decision odd, other cultures do not take such a dim view of prolonged breast feeding.

In an interview before the TV programme, 38-year-old Veronika described her reaction when Bethany asked for breast milk for her ninth birthday. “I was delighted, if a little taken aback,' she said.

“I'd stopped breastfeeding Bethany when she was five – though I was continuing to feed her younger sister, Elizah – but obviously she clearly remembered what a wonderful feeling it had been. It was the best thing she could imagine and, presented like that, it seemed like a great idea.”

Veronika, who edits an alternative-parenting magazine called The Mother continued: “My girls were brought up to think it was completely normal to ask for a breast in a shop,” she says. “That’s bad enough when they are toddlers, but when they are big girls, people get freaked out by it.

“I try to be discreet, but we have had some odd looks. People tend to be disgusted and disbelieving.”

“I can’t believe any mother wouldn’t love to hold onto that wonderful feeling you get when you are nursing your own child.”

Despite the Breast Is Best campaign, designed to highlight the benefits of breastfeeding to new born babies, only 68 per cent of mums routinely breastfeed. Of those around 80 per cent give up after just six months.
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/www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/viewarticle.aspx?id=328277&imageindex=1
 
Weird, but is it really some sort of sex-hangup as a lot of Posters to this Thread seem to think, or is it some kind of 'maternal nurture madness'?

Men see breasts and usually get turned on and the rise of the breast as a sex object really began in the Fifties when sex became commercially consumerized in the West and the likes of Marylin Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Diana Dors, Brigitte Bardot and Barbara Windsor suddenly became stellar goddesses. Not a child of their own amongst them, as far as I know! And bottle feeding became the norm, almost eradicating breast feeding in the West.

But, perhaps some women see the whole breast feeding thing as something not sexual, but giving and nurturing. They take it too far, but the disgust of onlookers says as much about the hangups of the onlookers than it does about the hangups of the feeders.
 
Elizah is approaching her eighth birthday and is not happy at the prospect of giving up her daily feed. “I don’t want to be weaned. I want to breastfeed for ever,” she said.
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You see, I don't think parents should indulge children in that sort of thing any more than if the child said they would only be prepared to subsist on coco pops, or if the child refused to use a toilet because they liked wearing nappies.

Children do often want to persist with childish or inappropriate behaviour and a bit part of parenting is to encourage them to move on from this, surely?
 
Pietro_Mercurios said:
Men see breasts and usually get turned on and the rise of the breast as a sex object really began in the Fifties when sex became commercially consumerized in the West and the likes of Marylin Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Diana Dors, Brigitte Bardot and Barbara Windsor suddenly became stellar goddesses. Not a child of their own amongst them, as far as I know!
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Not true in Jayne's case, she was very fertile, with five children by three (possibly four!) different men.
 
Diana Dors

Diana DorsAKA Diana Mary Fluck

Born: 23-Oct-1931
Birthplace: Swindon, Wiltshire, England
Died: 4-May-1984
Location of death: Windsor, Berkshire, England
Cause of death: Cancer - Stomach

Gender: Female
Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor

Nationality: England
Executive summary: Yield to the Night

Husband: Dennis Hamilton (m. 3-Jul-1951, d. 31-Jan-1959)
Husband: Richard Dawson (actor, m. 12-Apr-1959, div. 1966, two children)
Son: Mark
Son: Gary
Husband: Alan Lake (m. 23-Nov-1968, until her death, one child, d. suicide after her death)
Son: Jason
 
I stand corrected about the fecundity part.

The women themselves were of course human, whilst their iconic image was Divine.

MarilynChanel_lg1.jpg
 
I feel that it seems less sexual and more like not wanting to let your kids grow up. Then again most people drink milk their whole lives. Is getting it from your mother so much worse than getting it out of an animal? Seems weird to me either way.
 
Mister_Awesome said:
I feel that it seems less sexual and more like not wanting to let your kids grow up. Then again most people drink milk their whole lives. Is getting it from your mother so much worse than getting it out of an animal? Seems weird to me either way.
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Most people don't suck their milk straight out of the cow's tit, though. That's what I find weird about it. If you want to give your child breast milk after infancy, what's wrong with a cup?
 
From Someone with the word 'Anthropology' in a degree:

fluffle9 said:
Mister_Awesome said:
I feel that it seems less sexual and more like not wanting to let your kids grow up. Then again most people drink milk their whole lives. Is getting it from your mother so much worse than getting it out of an animal? Seems weird to me either way.
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Most people don't suck their milk straight out of the cow's tit, though. That's what I find weird about it. If you want to give your child breast milk after infancy, what's wrong with a cup?
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But, that might inhibit the nurturing experience. It would mean the impostition of artifice, a culturally produced artifact, the cup, between the mother and child, taking away the direct natural link, imposing external social values.

;)
 
For what it's worth, the 'normal' age for abandoning breast-feeding in pre-agrarian societies seems to be about 3-4 years. So, yes, breastfeeding an eight-year old is certainly unusual. Though I don't think all cultures and societies would have as much of a problem with it as we apparently do.

In fact it's quite interesting that this has raised such intense responses of horror and disgust, and I wonder if any of you have considered that these responses might look much odder than the prolonged breastfeeding to a society with different prejudices and ideals?

A different society might find it very strange that we fill our media with images of entirely fake silicone-filled naked breasts designed purely for lowest common denominator mass-consumer gratification, yet prosecute women who take their natural, milk-filled breasts out in public for the purpose of feeding a child. The implication that it's the act of nurturing we find somehow indecent and not the displaying of the breasts seems to be further supported by some of the posts here.

I think we might benefit from examining our own attitudes here a little more critically. It's said isn't it that a society is always defined by those prejudieces it doesn't even realize it has.

I wonder exactly how adolescently obsessive and absurd these posts might look to future centuries.

AA
 
AngelAlice said:
I wonder exactly how adolescently obsessive and absurd these posts might look to future centuries.

AA
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Ouch! (But probably true.)
 
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