Breastfeeding a four-year-old
Admittedly, I’m not so keen on the idea of nursing a four-year-old. I think it’s kind of weird and ooky in theory, but then again I thought that I’d wean at a year. My original thinking was that once a baby is old enough to ask for milk they’re old enough to be weaned. But it turned out that Sam started signing for milk well before he was a year old and it didn’t feel right denying him. Then he was a year and he was still such a baby that I didn’t feel the need to cut him off. Then he was fourteen months and it seemed like he was weaning himself.
Here we are six months later- eight months after the random weaning date I’d originally chosen- and based on this morning’s 40 minute nursing session it seems like child-led weaning is the path we’re taking. So nursing a four-year-old isn’t something I want to do, and I certainly hope it’s not the route we end up taking, but if that’s where I am in a couple of years… Well. That’s where we’ll be.
Many people think extended breastfeeding is unnatural (or weird and ooky as I said originally) which is why it was so nice to see this piece, “Why I still breastfeed my four-year-old daughter.” Here’s an excerpt.
Now, there’s a word: comfort. I remember, pre-motherhood, challenging a friend of mine who was breastfeeding her 18-month-old child.
“But isn’t it just for comfort?” I said.
“What’s wrong with wanting to comfort my child?” she said.
Now, this is what I tell people, too.
Breastfeeding is about comfort, but it’s also about nutrition, and that continues for as long as you breastfeed your child, whatever age they are.
My milk is a living fluid: full of enzymes, macronutrients, minerals, vitamins, essential fatty acids, T-cells and at least 200 types of immunoglobin.
And that’s just what’s known. There are ingredients in breast milk that we don’t even know about yet.
My milk changes, hour by hour, to meet the needs of my child.
It isn’t like any other woman’s milk, anywhere on the planet, because my daughter isn’t like any other child in the world.
I listed some of the benefits of extended nursing here.
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