Hello. I just "found" this group....

[Debbi801]

I have 3 kids (12, almost 10, and almost 3). My baby will be 3 in February. I'm still breast feeding and we co-sleep 99% of the time. This is by far the longest I've nursed. And, he is the first that I pumped with, so he never had formula. Part of me keeps hoping that he'll start to self wean soon. I am SO ready to have my body back completely. But, he shows absolutely no interest in weaning at all, and I don't want to push him.

At what age did you wean your child?

Thanks.
Debbi

P.S. I can also recite Good Night Moon by heart as well as Love You Forever. :-)

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

1. My son self weened at the age of 8 months.

I was actually expecting him to do it longer, but he didn't want to.
I think if you don't want to do it any more, then maybe you need to force your child to stop.

[trotsky]

2. 3 years?

I don't want to go judgmental on you but you gotta cut him off. Now. I know there are some schools of thought that it's OK to BF them up through high school if they want it but I dunno, even 3 years old seems kinda creepy.

[wildeyed]

13. 3 years is actually average age for weaning, internationally,

so it is really just a cultural thing to wean early or not breast feed at all.

[LeftyMom]

16. nevermind

[fortyfeetunder]

3. He went cold turkey at 46 months

However, it was a good thing when he decided to quit on his own. It happened one day when the spouse left town. He nursed in my lap for a couple of minutes and said, "I don't want any more". Didn't come back, ever.

[Debbi801]

4. Thanks for the post...

I was beginning to wonder if I shouldn't have posted the question.:-)

Debbi

[fortyfeetunder]

15. It's OK to ask

Sometimes reassurance is confidence building. You will get benefits downstream from extended nursing.

I was on a Yahoo group called toddler nursing, and there were at least 20 women who posted regularly. That was a good support group.

Toddler nursing is common, and accepted in the non-industrialized world. You are now part of the bigger world instead of the Western world. Congrats on letting your child nurse as long as possible!

[SCDem]

5. In the process of weaning

I have one son (13 months) and I am in the process of weaning him now. For the last two months he only nursed before going to bed and once or twice during the night since I stopped pumping around 11 months. But now because of family situation I am trying to wean him. It's about every other day now and when he wakes up at 4am. Also trying to get him to sleep through the night which he has only done 3 nights in his life and those were all at different times. Last night he did sleep through and woke up at 4am. I think it is fine if you are nursing now but both of you have to be comfortable. I think it is funny how people react to me when they find out I am still breastfeeding (I mean my son is only 13 months). They have this look on their face like oh my god how unnatural. And I just smile and say well the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding for a minimum of 1 yr and the World Health Organization recommends for a minimum of 2 yrs so I just want to make sure my son is healthy.

Good for you for nursing so long and good luck on weaning whether it is guided by you or your son.

[mopinko]

6. when you are ready, quit

i have no problem with nursing as long as you both want to, but if you are ready to be done, stop. it won't kill him. probably won't even scar him for life.
is co-sleeping part of the equation? if you want to change that also, seems like it would be a big bite at once. but maybe it would be better to get over it all at once. i dunno.
but i can tell you that the hardest thing about being a mom is deciding where to draw that line between you and them. it seems to me that no matter where you draw that line, it is always traumatic for both of you. so, i try to draw it where I need it to be. it doesn't always stick there, but you might as well try.

[Debbi801]

7. He goes back and forth with the co-sleeping...

He'll sleep a while in his bed and then suddenly won't sleep at all unless he is sleeping with us. He has always been sleep challenged and we refuse to do the whole "cry it out" thing. It's funny, 3 kids and each of them have totally different sleep habits and needs.

I wouldn't mind the co-sleeping and I wouldn't mind the nursing, but throw them together and it makes for mom getting very little sleep.

He lags a little in the communications department. I am not sure if he is having stress at day care, etc. and can't communicate it. But, he is very clingy and needy these days at bed time.

Thanks for your comments.
Debbi

[mopinko]

8. no kid benefits

from a stressed out, overtired, stretched too thin mom. take care of yourself. (not like i do this, mind you)

[phylny]

10. As an SLP, and off-topic

if he's lagging communication wise, be sure to contact your local agency or school district and have him evaluated. It's free of charge, and it helps reduce frustration if he can communicate better. PM me with any questions, if you like.

As an aside, in my work with early intervention, I've noticed two separate things in common with a lot of the kids I see - they're either using a pacifier, or drinking from a bottle well past the time they should have given it/them up.

Breastfeeding is different, unless he's dragging you around the house with him ;)

[Debbi801]

11. We've had him evaluated twice...

He tests on the very low side or normal as far as speech goes and the hearing tests have been completely normal. I have seen considerable improvement in the past month, but it is still worrisome at times. Part of the problem has been having 2 considerable older siblings in the house (12 and almost 10) that will give him anything he wants without him "working" for it by communicating his needs. We're all working on that one. But, like I said, he is beginning to show advancements. I can tell that he gets frustrated at times when he wants to communicate something and can't. That is generally when he starts tantruming. I've debated just going the speech path route on my own, but insurance won't cover it because EI doesn't see that he has any problems. *sigh* Once upon a time, I was a speech path major in college and I try to use some of what I remember with him.

Luckily, he was never fond of the bottle. He gave that up willingly before he turned one. It's always been me or a regular cup. :-)

Thanks for your input.

[phylny]

9. The girls all weaned themselves,

at different ages.

First one 12 months, second one 13 months, third 14 months.

At that point, though, they were all probably nursing one time per day, at night before bed.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

12. My son nursed very well up until 8 months,

then he just went cold turkey and quit. I guess it was good that he did it himself, because I wound up getting a job 2 months later (I'm no longer working that job). He started walking at 8 months too. He was no longer interested in nursing once he started walking. He was little Mr. Independence. Why would he want to sit still and nurse when he could run around the house and drink out of a bottle at the same time? He feed himself out of a bottle from then on. Well, he uses a sippy cup now. He's like that with eating too. He figured out how to use a spoon around his second birthday, and since then he won't allow anyone else to help him eat. I wish he was like this with the potty. I guess that will just take some more time.

[wildeyed]

14. I was lucky,

both mine weaned themselves right around one year. But I do have several friend struggling with weaning their toddlers. The consensus seems to be to start with daytime weaning, then cut out the nights. Good luck!

[gollygee]

17. I started with night weaning and that worked well

I didn't actually intend to wean altogether - but she quit nursing within about 2 months of nightweaning.

Nightweaning went *very* well. I thought she would be upset when I told her I wouldn't nurse her in the middle of the night (we co-sleep too) but she just wimpered and fell asleep. Within two or three days she was sleeping through the night.

Her interest in nursing waned at that same time. About two months later she stopped altogether.

She was 26 months when she weaned.

And don't feel bad about nursing at 3 - that's crazy talk that it's "creepy" or whatever. It's a beautiful and natural thing.

[trotsky]

18. Maybe instead of "crazy talk"

you could simply refer to it as a difference of opinion?

Just a suggestion.

[SCDem]

19. "seems kind of creepy"

is more than a difference of opinion... it sounds a bit judgemental to me :shrug:

[trotsky]

20. Well, I think there is a point at which everyone would find it creepy.

An 18-year-old at the breast?
16?
12?
8?
4?

Just a matter of drawing the line, which of course is opinion.

[gollygee]

21. No, it is a matter of what is biologically normal

Children do not breastfeed until 12 or 16 or 18. I've never heard of a child breastfeeding until 8, but that is possible although unlikely. It is perfectly normal for a child to breastfeed until 4.

You are saying that to breastfeed a child who is at an age where it is very biologically normal to breastfeed is "creepy" and I maintain that is crazy talk. And judgemental.

[trotsky]

22. Oh well, I figured I'd get flamed for it.

Biologically, breasts will continue to make milk as long as it's being expressed. So to use the phrase "biologically normal" is to draw a line, too.

[gollygee]

23. It has nothing to do with the breasts, it has to do with the child

children only nurse for a certain amount of time. If left to their own devices, all children will wean themselves.

[trotsky]

24. Not all.

You have to be careful about making universal statements.

http://www.lalecheleague.org/Law/BAFeb01.html

An informal survey conducted by Dr. Dettwyler indicated that many more women in the United States are nursing children past infancy, and she has reports of children as old as ten years old still breastfeeding. So many women are breastfeeding past infancy that two books on the subject have chapters on nursing past age four (MOTHERING YOUR NURSING TODDLER, by Norma Jane Bumgarner, and The Nursing Mother ’s Guide to Weaning, by Kathleen Huggins)

I'm really not trying to pick a fight here, but temporarily putting aside what you consider "biologically normal," wouldn't you find it a little bit disturbing to find a much older child (10+ years) still breastfeeding?

[gollygee]

25. Past four is absolutely normal

there is nothing abormal about nursing past 4. That is not odd at all.

Past ten is unusual but not impossible. Almost all children would self-wean before that, but perhaps a rare child might continue to that age. Particularly if the child had some kind of physical or emotional problem.

There certainly aren't any 12 or 16 year olds nursing.

There certainly is nothing creepy about a three or four year old nursing.

http://www.mothering.com/articles/new_baby/breastfeeding/after-three.html

Perhaps even more interesting is the research conducted by Katherine A. Dettwyler, adjunct professor of anthropology and nutrition at Texas A & M University, on both nonhuman primates and on infant nursing practices across a variety of human cultures. Dettwyler writes that nursing a four year old, or even a six year old, is both "normal and natural for humans," and argues that the "predictions for a natural age of weaning in modern human populations, based on the nonhuman primate patterns, range between 2.5 and 7.0 years of age."9,10

[trotsky]

26. Normal or creepy?

New Zealand had a famous murder case - David Bain, a young man who shot & killed his parents and siblings. It reportedly came out during the trial that Bain's mother had breastfed her childen up through the age of 13. Normal or creepy?

"Creepy" is really just my cultural opinion, I admit. Just like nearly all of us would think it "creepy" if an adult man fathered a child with a 12 year old girl who was post-pubescent, even though that would also be biologically "normal."

[SCDem]

27. Oh gawd

Talking about a case where a boy that killed his parents and oh yeah his mom breastfed him til he was 13. You sound like my mother who swears to this day that her sister that breastfed her son till he was the age of two is the cause of all of his psychological problems today. Why is it not equally "creepy" when women who are perfectly capable of breastfeeding their children from birth choose not to and prefer to use a manufactured non-natural formula? That is more creepy to me and should get more press but does it? Of course not.

[gollygee]

28. You are talking about extremely rare cases

and we were talking about a mother who was thinking about weaning a three-year-old, which you called "creepy". You then called nursing a child over 4 creepy.

I don't know if the act of breastfeeding at 13 is creepy but whatever was done to the kids to make them emotionally still have that need is certainly creepy. It is not natural for 13-year-olds to have any interest in breastfeeding, but if they'd been abused or whatever and hadn't matured naturally perhaps they'd still feel a need for that kind of nurturing behavior.

Unless there is some odd circumstance that hinders a child's development, kids that age do not nurse.

[trotsky]

29. You're the one who said "all" and "any" - those are extreme words.

When you use extreme words, just one counter-example will dismiss them, no matter how "rare" it is.

My reason for citing this was to demonstrate that at some point, even if you claim it would never happen, there will be an age at which pretty much everyone would call breastfeeding "creepy," or pass similar judgement. I draw the line somewhere at 3, you draw it elsewhere. It's our cultural values that help determine that, so blame American society, not me for "crazy talk."

I note that you are now qualifying your earlier statements and pretty much admitting you do draw a line yourself, at what you consider "normal." That's all I wanted to ask you to do.

[gollygee]

30. 3 is below any normal line for breastfeeding

I do not draw a line at how old children can breastfeed. I do know that children do not naturally breastfeed after 8 to 10, and you showed a very unnatural example as evidence that children do breastfeed late. I don't think one obviously troubled family proves that breastfeeding children over 2 or whatever age you think is ok is "creepy".

[trotsky]

31. I didn't use it to justify my own decision.

Again, I only cited it to show that yes, there is a point at which even you would consider it inappropriate (just to avoid using the word "creepy" which I think you have read more into than I meant). You choose to claim that you draw the line where it "naturally" goes, but I have shown that can be blurry in itself.

I did not cite it to say that because one woman had breastfed until her kids were 13, that automatically makes breastfeeding past age 2 universally wrong - which are the words you're attempting to put into my mouth. That's not fair.

Not that this proves ANYTHING, but I will note that a whole lot more Americans agree with me than agree with you. Thankfully, we are all free to hold our own opinions.

Can we just agree to disagree then, or is everyone who disagrees with you guilty of "crazy talk"?

[gollygee]

32. Irony

You're upset with me saying you're guilty of "crazy talk" when you gave this advice to a mom looking for parenting advice:

"I don't want to go judgmental on you but you gotta cut him off. Now. I know there are some schools of thought that it's OK to BF them up through high school if they want it but I dunno, even 3 years old seems kinda creepy."

I don't consider everyone who disagrees with me to be guilty of crazy talk. Do you think every parenting choice someone makes that is different from the choice you would make is kind of creepy?