Breastfeeding toddlers

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Breast milk is quite sweet. The nature of it changes depending on the weather, higher water content in the summer. Having known a lot of the Sugar-is-Evil mommies who will do anything to save their young child from tasting the white poison it cracks me up how sweet breast milk is. Guess what hippie moms, you aren't going to save them from a sweet tooth with all that roughage because the first thing they ever tasted was sweet itself.

(Though actually the first thing a baby tastes is colostrum before the milk comes in and I don't know if that is sweet at all.. I would suspect so.)

 

[Trekker4747]

Do we stop giving children cow's milk as soon as they are eating solids and are on a regular diet? If it is OK for a 3 or 4 year old to drink cow's milk than I can see no reason why s/he can't continue to drink breast milk if s/he is willing to put in the extra effort needed to suckle from a breast.

You realize for a child to drink cow's milk it doesn't involve them sucking on a woman's body part, right? If the mother wants to keep pumping milk and feeding it to kid that's fine but at some point nursing should really stop. The video above of the woman nursing her eight year old child is just, IMHO, sick. I mean I just wonder how "screwed up" that kid is going to be later in life especially when her own breasts are seen as sex-objects by men and she has memories of nursing on her well-endowed mother.

Sorry, it's likely a cultural thing, a gender thing and all sorts of other things. But, for my opinion, if the child can eat at the table with the rest of his family he shouldn't be nursing.

 

[Miss Chicken]

It is about time we stop looking at breasts as sex-objects. There are plenty of cultures that see them for what they really are - objects for babies and small children to suckle on.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

It is about time we stop looking at breasts as sex-objects.

Okay, I will stop now.

 

[Trekker4747]

It is about time we stop looking at breasts as sex-objects. There are plenty of cultures that see them for what they really are - objects for babies and small children to suckle on.

Yes. It's about time we completely change the way modern culture has formed over the course of the last two millennium.

Brilliant.

 

[Miss Chicken]

It is about time we stop looking at breasts as sex-objects.

Okay, I will stop now.

Somehow I don't think it is that easily.

However I am glad many mothers are now more willing to ignore society's view of breasts as sex objects and stand up for their right to breastfeed in public and to feed their babies beyond the 12 to 18 months or so that they have been told is acceptable.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Why is the child past nursing if the child still enjoys nursing and finds it comforting?

There are socialization concerns. The creation of a certain distance between parent and child is considered part of the child's development. Now I don't have a clue what point that point is, but it's not necessarily determined by the child.

 

[Miss Chicken]

As most mothers who are breastfeeding four or five years olds are only doing it occasionally, for example, maybe in the evening before the child goes to bed, how can it harm socialisation? Why is a child asking to be breastfeed before going to sleep any different from a child asking to be told a story by the parent or asking for a favourite teddy or a security blanket?

 

[Trekker4747]

As most mothers who are breastfeeding four or five years olds are only doing it occasionally, for example, maybe in the evening before the child goes to bed, how can it harm socialisation? Why is a child asking to be breastfeed before going to sleep any different from a child asking to be told a story by the parent or asking for a favourite teddy or a security blanket?

Because one is being read a book or cradling a piece of cloth, the other is sucking on part of the woman's body to get a substance that's likely not doing him any good (though no harm) and he really doesn't need it anymore.

I mean, do you really want to compare a child who can talk, eat solid foods, is old enough to be forming life-long memories, and is even going to school sucking on a woman's breast with a security blanket?

 

[Nick086]

As most mothers who are breastfeeding four or five years olds are only doing it occasionally, for example, maybe in the evening before the child goes to bed, how can it harm socialisation? Why is a child asking to be breastfeed before going to sleep any different from a child asking to be told a story by the parent or asking for a favourite teddy or a security blanket?

Because one is being read a book or cradling a piece of cloth, the other is sucking on part of the woman's body to get a substance that's likely not doing him any good (though no harm) and he really doesn't need it anymore.

I mean, do you really want to compare a child who can talk, eat solid foods, is old enough to be forming life-long memories, and is even going to school sucking on a woman's breast with a security blanket?

That just something that needs to stop when they reach the age of two

 

[Miss Chicken]

Because one is being read a book or cradling a piece of cloth, the other is sucking on part of the woman's body to get a substance that's likely not doing him any good (though no harm) and he really doesn't need it anymore.

He is suckling on his mother's breast, the breast of the person he loves in a totally non-sexual way.

Many children around the world are still breastfeed at 3 or 4 or 5. It isn't doing them any harm.

In Western society children were and still are being breastfeed beyond two or three. Your would be surprise how common it actually is.

My mother-in-law's brother remembers being breastfeed as a six year old. It didn't so him any harm and of all the people I breastfeed my baby in front of he was the one who made me feel the most comfortable because he just didn't see breastfeeding as something sexual, he saw it as something natural and beautiful. He was one of 16 children so he saw a great deal of breastfeeding even after he weaned himself.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

It is about time we stop looking at breasts as sex-objects.

Okay, I will stop now.

Somehow I don't think it is that easily.

However I am glad many mothers are now more willing to ignore society's view of breasts as sex objects and stand up for their right to breastfeed in public and to feed their babies beyond the 12 to 18 months or so that they have been told is acceptable.

Every time I walk past a mom feeding an over one year old in public I say something positive to her.

 

[Miss Chicken]

When I was a young mother my sister-in-law (husband's brother's wife) expected me to go into the bedroom to feed my baby rather than let her husband see me breastfeeding. The first time she did this was in her own house and I was forced to feed the baby in a cold bedroom in the middle of winter as bedrooms aren't usually heated in Tasmanian homes.

The second time she tried it I was in my parents-in-law's house and my mother-in-law and father-in-law told me to stay put. My sister-in-law said breastfeeding was disgusting and my mother-in-law told her she could either leave or go and sit in the bedroom until I was finish.

My mother-in-law was the eldest of the 16 children so she certainly saw a lot of breastfeeding. My father-in-law was the eldest of five.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I like that sticker you can get,

"If breastfeeding offends you put a blanket over YOUR head."

 

[RJDiogenes]

It is about time we stop looking at breasts as sex-objects.

Okay, I have to draw the line here.

 

[Yeoman Randi]

A little late to this discussion, but my two cents: I nursed both of my kids. My son was 9 months old when i weaned him, my daughter weaned herself at 8 months. I would have preferred weaning her at 12 months, but by 8 months she had enough and refused the breast. There is no denying the health benefits of nursing over bottle feeding. But there comes a point where the child HAS TO learn to comfort him/herself without the breast. Nursing a five year old is not only icky but i believe detrimental to the child. They MUST learn ways to comfort themselves otherwise there will be problems down the road for that child. There are other ways to show you love your child and comfort them other than the breast. Five years old? Just plain icky.

 

[Trekker4747]

A little late to this discussion, but my two cents: I nursed both of my kids. My son was 9 months old when i weaned him, my daughter weaned herself at 8 months. I would have preferred weaning her at 12 months, but by 8 months she had enough and refused the breast. There is no denying the health benefits of nursing over bottle feeding. But there comes a point where the child HAS TO learn to comfort him/herself without the breast. Nursing a five year old is not only icky but i believe detrimental to the child. They MUST learn ways to comfort themselves otherwise there will be problems down the road for that child. There are other ways to show you love your child and comfort them other than the breast. Five years old? Just plain icky.

If the kid is going to school then it should stop. I mean is the kid going to school talking about he sucked on mom's teat lastnight? No that's just wrong. If the kid can eat adult foods, granted in child-sized pieces/portions then he shouldn't be drinking from mommy's boob.

 

[Deckerd]

It shouldn't bother you. It's not your problem.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

A little late to this discussion, but my two cents: I nursed both of my kids. My son was 9 months old when i weaned him, my daughter weaned herself at 8 months. I would have preferred weaning her at 12 months, but by 8 months she had enough and refused the breast. There is no denying the health benefits of nursing over bottle feeding. But there comes a point where the child HAS TO learn to comfort him/herself without the breast. Nursing a five year old is not only icky but i believe detrimental to the child. They MUST learn ways to comfort themselves otherwise there will be problems down the road for that child. There are other ways to show you love your child and comfort them other than the breast. Five years old? Just plain icky.

If the kid is going to school then it should stop. I mean is the kid going to school talking about he sucked on mom's teat lastnight? No that's just wrong. If the kid can eat adult foods, granted in child-sized pieces/portions then he shouldn't be drinking from mommy's boob.

Who the hell are you to make these decisions for people?

 

[Nick086]

A little late to this discussion, but my two cents: I nursed both of my kids. My son was 9 months old when i weaned him, my daughter weaned herself at 8 months. I would have preferred weaning her at 12 months, but by 8 months she had enough and refused the breast. There is no denying the health benefits of nursing over bottle feeding. But there comes a point where the child HAS TO learn to comfort him/herself without the breast. Nursing a five year old is not only icky but i believe detrimental to the child. They MUST learn ways to comfort themselves otherwise there will be problems down the road for that child. There are other ways to show you love your child and comfort them other than the breast. Five years old? Just plain icky.

If the kid is going to school then it should stop. I mean is the kid going to school talking about he sucked on mom's teat lastnight? No that's just wrong. If the kid can eat adult foods, granted in child-sized pieces/portions then he shouldn't be drinking from mommy's boob.

Who the hell are you to make these decisions for people?

Oh don't you worry hun, the school districts will take of that problem if it ever comes up