Breastfeeding beyond a year – #KBBF2014
All around you there are secret feeders. Under cover of night, in the early hours of morning, in hidden rooms in nondescript streets.
They’re not adults. And they don’t creep through the kitchen to the fridge, or stealthily open cupboards to search for the chocolate bars stashed at the back of the top shelf*.
Who am I talking about?
I’m talking about the breastfeeding children. The ones who are big enough to walk and talk, but still small enough to want the comfort and nutrition of their mothers’ milk.
Thing is, most of the time, they only want it once or twice a day. And they might only want it at home. And so when the rest of society suddenly discover this secret – suddenly it’s disgusting, its taboo, it is JUST NOT NORMAL.
But actually, it IS normal. And it happens a lot more that you think. It’s just that it’s not necessarily something you’d notice, or talk about, or realise unless you’re doing it yourself. It’s not as obvious as a small baby nursing, because older children don’t need to nurse so often. It’s not as widely seen partly because it IS publicly viewed as being a bit wrong.
However, talk to any group of mums with toddlers or preschoolers, and you’ll probably find that once one of them announces she is still breastfeeding her older child, suddenly the floodgates open and it’ll turn out that in fact many of them have continued to breastfeed past 12 months. It’s just that it isn’t really talked about, it isn’t seen so much because it’s mainly done behind closed doors and because no-one knows who else is doing it, they don’t find out that actually, a lot of other people are doing it too!
The secret society that no-one knows they are in…
Perhaps for the sake of not-so-secret society, it’s time we talked about it more.
*I can’t actually guarantee that small children AREN’t doing this. I know mine probably would, given the chance.
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