Breastfeeding Past Two…Too Much? Pt. 2
BY CLEO
In the beginning, pumping was all I seemed to be doing with little results, so I had to finger feed formula to my baby. It was upsetting but I did what I had to do until my milk came in. Once it did come and we got the whole latch thing sorted out (took about a month) I discovered something wonderful.
I could feed her anytime, anywhere under any circumstances. I never had to worry about sanitizing bottles, warming up to the right temperature, or having to run to the store late at night cause I was running out of formula. It also seemed to work magic whenever she was upset. She never suffered from colic and hardly ever had any spit ups. She was a happy, healthy and very content baby. The other benefit is that it burns so many calories that even though I was eating a lot I kept losing weight to the point where I now weigh less than I did before I got pregnant. Woohoo!
From the beginning I planned to breastfeed until she was 12 to 18 months old. Well, something crazy happenned along the way, as it seemed she had a different plan in mind. Unfortunaltely she learned to fall asleep breastfeeding. So herein lies the problem, she is now almost 2 and a half years old and when she’s ready for naptime or bedtime she now asks for it by name and won’t fall asleep until I give in and breastfeed her.
The truth is that I do believe it is time for me to stop, but doing that is going to take a couple of months of deep commitment and many sleepless nights to establish new routines. I do want to stress that it should be an individuals decision, and should not be influenced by society. I was recently made to feel like a terrible mother by an intern at my last physical. The real sad part was that she was a woman telling me that I shouldn’t still be breastfeeding and to stop right away. What are they teaching them at med school?
Even the World Health Organization (WHO) is recomending breastfeeding past the age of two.
I worked really hard to establish breastfeeding and now I will have to work just as hard to discontinue breastfeeding. Overall, its been a wonderful experience full of ups and downs, but hey, that’s just life.
Happy feeding everyone!
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