Why on earth is it anyone else's business when I wean my 2 yo and how many feeds he has a day?
I can't believe the number of people who say "You should stop now he can ask for it"....Sorry but aside from when he had heaps of problems early on it's not just language acquisition that's made it possible for him to ask.
Or "he's big enough now"
Or "I weaned mine at 1yo ....you've gotta have a life"
Now I have been saying " the WHO says we should continue to breastfeed until they are AT LEAST two" but do any of you have better replies than that?
I worked sooo sooo hard to be able to breastfeed.....why can't people just leave us both alone to enjoy it?
Oh and I don't know when I'll wean I am hoping it will just gradually happen. Some days he just has 2 feeds and other 4 or 5 ...........
After reading that I guess I should have posted in the boo-hoo area but I honestly would like to hear how other people who have maintained normal healthy breastfeeding for their 2yo's have coped with the general disapproval that I am experiencing.
My responses were (I weaned when DS was 2 and 3/4) ....
why do they think another mammals milk is better then his mothers?
do you think the benefits of breastmilk disappears just cause DS is 2 and 1 day (or 3 or 100 etc...)
the world average age of weaning is 4; as a lot of babies in western countries are weaned before they are 6 mnths old... that means there are a lot of babies around the world feeding a lot longer then 4
People annoy me... I am getting questions about weaning and my DD is just shy of 6 months.
It's no ones business!! Maybe you should be a bit cheeky and say "since you're so interested you'll be the first person I call when I decide!"
I refused to wean my DD( who is now 9)- I let her tell me when she was finished which was when she was somewhere between 3-4! My milk slowly decreased as she got older and she was devistated when there was no longer any "milky milk" (what she called it) left. Even now- she is excited that we are having another baby so she can have milky milk. Much to her annoyance - she is now too old to take it from my boob and has settled with having in a cup. I have a feeling she will hate the taste but I'm not going to deny her.
I got so many looks and horrible comments from people- but I think I just felt sorry for them. Sorry that they were so narrow minded, and sorry for their children etc. I knew I was doing the right thing for my baby and I never regretted it.
Now that I'm preg again, I know I'm going to get much more nasty comments because I'm sure my husbands family will have many opinions about what I should be doing- and they are very vocal- but in the end, we do want we want for our babies!! The rest of the world can mind their business.
I'm sorry your going through all that!! But you're doing a good thing, so keep going if you can and want!
Maybe they just don't know what their talking about
I used to think babies were meant to be weaned when.. They got teeth/started solids blah blah blah because that's what society taught me
Now that I have a baby and I'm breast feeding I figure to hell with them I like this gig and it makes me and dd feel good and she is healthy and happy and that's all that matters
Last edited by jellybean88; August 12th, 2013 at 06:51 AM.
i didn't really enter any arguments, cos whether people had an issue with it or not had no bearing on what my child and i was doing.
I didn't use the WHO argument, because i didn't know what we our plans were going to be at 2 years of age. and i also don't follow all the WHO recommendations so i didn't want to pick and choose.
I think i went with deflection a few times, "thanks, we are doing ok at the moment and will just see what happens" And that was honestly true, because i didn't know how long we would feed for, even right up until DD's last feed and the weeks after, i wasn't sure if she was finished or would want to breastfeed again.
Thanks for those wonderful answers. My LO was feeling a bit off colour this morning and had and extra feed at about 9.30 which is very unusual for him. Good to know he knows it's good medicine as well as good food!
I like your answer Joeve and the deflection thing is good too, HotI.
I guess I am a little sick of re-educating people.
My first baby died at 41 weeks and I had to tech those around me about the grief we were coping with. Even now stupid people say stuff like "well she's in a better place".
I guess I just want plain sailing but my choice to continue breastfeeding for a normal length of time is not something people can allow without question or opinion.
I tell people that I dearly hope DD2 continues to bf past two, because she starts preschool next year (right when her new little sister is due to arrive) and I really want her to benefit from the immune-boosting qualities that she gets from bfing. That way, she hopefully won't bring home as many bugs to give to her tiny sister.
With DD1 (who bf until she was almost four), I don't know why, but most people seemed more interested in why I'd continued to bf her, rather than getting snarky at me for doing so. I used to tell them she was having a bf morning and night and most people's (ridiculous) objections didn't apply when they saw she was happy, healthy, independent and clearly not disadvantaged by my weird urge to continue to behave like the mammal I am.
Another good one is that gorillas (our closest living relative) usually bf their babies for at least four years, with no other food offered until around three. I don't see anyone stepping in to stop a gorilla mum bfing her LO! Clearly, we were designed to bf for a lot longer than babies in many westernised cultures are bf (if they are bf at all).
Good on you for having clear reasons on why you keep bfing. I'm sure that comes across in your response.
Why is it so?
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