The other day I was on the phone with a male friend from Beijing, who told me that his wife is still breastfeeding their almost-6 years old daughter. I felt shocked, never heard anyone around me has this kinda of situation.
I told him that In 2012, mother of two Jamie Lynne Grumet caused an uproar when she appeared on a controversial Time magazine cover breast-feeding her nearly 4-year-old son, who was standing on a chair.
Some scholars says that it is attachment parenting which can give kids more comfort, trust; parents and kids can both decide when they want to stop breastfeeding.
Apparently, in most places, we don’t see such big kids still being breastfed, hence social stigma is the biggest thing that long-term breastfeeding mums find problematic. They might face strange stare in public or being asked all sorts of strange questions.
For me, I never really breastfeed my daughter as the nurse in the very beginning gave her the bottle, hence she became lazy. I pumped milk for one year, then stopped, my daughter continued drinking formula till she turned 4 years old.
To be honest, I do question about the nutritional value that mum’s milk still has when kids are 6,7 years old, maybe more on emotional side. I hope that I can succeed on breastfeeding for my 2nd child and not sure how long it may go on, probably one year or 1.5, won’t be 4,5, 6, that’s for sure.