Is a child ever too old to be breastfed?

lishdesigns:

Funny this thread should come up - my mum bought me a few magazines the other day and there was an article in one of them of a woman who was still BF her 14 year old, which I do think is a bit extreme......

 

He goes to high school, and comes home to get his milk as an afternoon 'snack'. the mum said that she tried to wean him at school age, then at 9, but he cried and cried so they still have a daily feed. They have apparently agreed that by 15 he should stop though.

 

I find this a little odd cos surely by 14 he views breasts in a slightly different context...........

 

lishdesigns:

I find this a little odd cos surely by 14 he views breasts in a slightly different context...........

Yes because teenage boys tend to feel eroticc over their mothers? and again that is a society based concept.

What age should you stop cuddling a child or offering them comfort? Because thats what bfing is to many children.

I think that due to the tiny proportion of babies who are BF beyond 6 months in this country, most people will never have seen an older baby or toddler BF and just assume that it is something exclusively for younger babies. The population here is rather more educated/tolerant than IRL but nonetheless it is something that is tricky to get your head around - for mums who have BF and then stopped, it will seem odd to think of BF a baby older than the baby that they BF. For mums of younger babies, it will seem odd to think of BF a much older baby.

I BF Megan til she was 2, and really it was only pregnancy that caused us to stop, I should think we'd have ambled along happily indefinitely otherwise. Yet it is odd for me to look at her now (3 1/2) and think that she could still be being BF and that there are still hitched contemporaries who are still BF children her age, because BF her feels so in the past now.

lishdesigns:

Funny this thread should come up - my mum bought me a few magazines the other day and there was an article in one of them of a woman who was still BF her 14 year old, which I do think is a bit extreme......

He goes to high school, and comes home to get his milk as an afternoon 'snack'. the mum said that she tried to wean him at school age, then at 9, but he cried and cried so they still have a daily feed. They have apparently agreed that by 15 he should stop though.

I find this a little odd cos surely by 14 he views breasts in a slightly different context...........

Well, I'm 35 and can manage to simultaneously entertain more than one context for a breast <shrugs>

I almost don't want to comment on this, because of the quality of the source - I can imagine the type of magazine.  Yes, it seems odd - but perhaps he has learning difficulties and this feed is really important to him.  Tbh, I'd find it far more worrying that someone would share this story (presuming it was one of those badly written with pictures articles) when it would open him up to teasing.  I wouldn't feed a 14 year old - but I'd want to understand a lot more than that sort of magazine would tell you before I judged that individual case.

No matter what your views on breastfeeding are, a two, three or four year old breastfeeding is unusual, but a 14 year old breastfeeding is odd. Really odd. It's nothing to do with it being sexual or anything, it's just weird. 

Pittabre:

lishdesigns:

I find this a little odd cos surely by 14 he views breasts in a slightly different context...........

 

Yes because teenage boys tend to feel eroticc over their mothers? and again that is a society based concept.

 

What age should you stop cuddling a child or offering them comfort? Because thats what bfing is to many children.

 

Depends if you read a lot of Freud

See initially my reaction was that 14 is too old, but then that's just me giving into societal conditioning again isn't it? As the article Corinne posted shows, in some cultures this would be completely natural still and I think that as MG says, it's important to look at the individual case before making assumptions. I certainly wouldn't want to feed a 14 year old either, but then I go back to my original post that if they're both happy with it then it's not down to anyone else to decide. Again as MG says, I wonder why the mother decided to talk to the trash mags about it, unless she saw it as trying to redress the status quo.

I do think Little Britain has a lot to answer for with the perception of extended breastfeeders!

JasmineJ:

No matter what your views on breastfeeding are, a two, three or four year old breastfeeding is unusual, but a 14 year old breastfeeding is odd. Really odd. It's nothing to do with it being sexual or anything, it's just weird. 

Why?

WMarineGirlS.

I am hoping to stop BFing Matthew before his stag party, as I don't fancy going with him.

Okay, seriously, when I was pregnant with Louise I remember being surprised when I saw one of H's relatives BFing a 7 months old. Why? Because I had never seen a baby bigger than a newborn being bfed before. I sort of thought that bfing was for newborns, and that all babies ended up being FFed at some stage, in western society anyway. I had no clue, I felt no need to research it as I thought that was it. I always planned on bfing, just to see. Around me all I heard were negative stories, noone ever told me that it could be a great experience for both mother and child (and purse ). Anyway when Louise was born she took to it like a duck to water. So I told myself I'd do it for 2 months, then 6, then 12, then until we were ready to stop. We stopped at 15 months. Now Matthew is 7 months old and I have no idea of when we'll stop. He has allergies and has been diagnosed, amongst other allergies, with a dairy and soy allergy, so that is that really. I'll certainly do it for a year, and am happy to keep going until we are good and ready.

Celeste:

JasmineJ:

 

No matter what your views on breastfeeding are, a two, three or four year old breastfeeding is unusual, but a 14 year old breastfeeding is odd. Really odd. It's nothing to do with it being sexual or anything, it's just weird. 

 

 

Why?

 

Good question.

There are some cultures, such as in areas of Mongolia, where bfing is the norm into adulthood. <shrug>

I'm one of the mothers who are being weird, judging by lots of people on this thread, by bfing until my son is 3.5 years old - so far. I'm pregnant now so he might stop before he's <shock horror> 4, he might not. He's got a strong independent spirit, he doesn't bf every day, I leave him overnight quite regularly without problem, he asks now rather than me offering, and I manage to have an active sex life. I think that covers most of the concerns people raise when discussions about extended bfing arise.  

So I'm afraid the "horror tales" from House of Tiny Tearaways and the like are meaningless to me - people who go on that programme have serious issues, they're not an example of normal family life (and even the desire to go on it makes them odd to me) and I certainly won't be making my parenting decisions on the basis of a tv show.

I'm all for Dr Sears attitude - if it's broken, fix it -  with regard to parenting, so if bfing is no longer right for mother and child that's fine. But to turn the tables around, I don't understand why people are so keen on having an arbitary times to stop. If the bfing relationship is happy then giving it up JUST because baby is a year old (as a friend of mine did) is just odd to me. If it's not broken, why fix it? Given the WHO recommendations are until the age of 2 or until the child self-weans, I find it odd people think continuing to that time is weird.