how long???

[helkat]

what is the longest that someone you know, IRL or online has nursed? what is average amongst you ladies, would you say??? i remember a few weeks ago reading a post that someones 5.5 yo just weaned...is that pretty average as far as CLW goes?
i look at some of my 3, 4 & 5 yo patients and i can't imagine nursing a child that old! then i get home and look at/nurse dd and i don't ever want her to wean. i told dh that i am going to be chasing after her to kindergarten with the booby!

also, for those of you that were still nursing and got pregnant, did your supply decrease ir did your child notice a change in taste, etc?

thanks,
helga

[callmemama]

I can't give you an average, although anthropologist Katherine Dettwyler suggests that the natural weaning age of humans falls between the ages of 2.5 and 7 years. I know there are people on here with nurslings older than 7. Mine turned 5 a couple of months ago, and I will tell you that I never imagined I would nurse a 5yo. It happens so gradually, it feels (and is) completely normal. When the rest of the population figures out that breastfeeding is both for nurturing and nutrition and has nothing to do with sex, I think we'll all see a lot more older nurslings.

[witchbaby]

i think the oldest i knew online was 2.5 years. the oldest i've known and been close to was 18 months. however, there are several toddlers and little kids up to about 4 or 5 that were nursing at my lll meeting.
k is only 13 months old right now, but i can honestly say i don't see an end in sight. i swear, the kid will be nursing in college. but that's fine, since there are many fine schools in our town!

[mother_sunshine]

Originally Posted by helkat

i told dh that i am going to be chasing after her to kindergarten with the booby!

FWIW, I worked in dd's kindergarten (and 1st grade) classroom and never did she nurse.


There is a poll here in the Child-Led Weaning forum that shows what the ages of our nurslings are.

[helkat]

hi michelle -

i can't believe you nursed to 7.5 years! i don't mean that in a bad way at all - i just find it hard to grasp! did you plan on nursing that long? how often did you nurse when she was older? how did others react?
i'm sorry i have so many questions, i am just fascinated!

thanks,
helga

[Cilantro]

I almost had a heart attack when I saw that post about self weaning at 7.5 years! I am tandem nursing a 3.5 yo dd and 1.5 yo dd. The younger one I still feed on demand but the older one has gone through different stages of my setting boundaries to various degrees and then backing off on the boundaries... its been tough at times especially during pregnancy when every single latch on was very painful.

She mainly only nurses at nap and night and recently I have been limiting her night time nursing because I feel Im just getting dehydrated and not enough sleep! She would nurse every hour if I let her though.

Sometimes I wonder if dd2 will nurse this long and I really hope she will. But I also wonder if ds1 will still be nursing when dd2 stops!

The relationship is so important to me that Im willing to give them what they need. Good thing I have an understanding husband!

[Mom2baldie]

One of my best friends nursed 2 of her children until they were around 3.5 years old. I think thats the longest out of everyone I know in real life.

On average (with women I know IRL) its less than a year for sure. I used to attend a very mainstream playgroup where most of the babies were breastfed 4 months or less.

For your other question, when I got pregnant with my 3rd child my milk supply did decrease to the point of nothing! My DD continued nursing though for comfort. I would assume that she was surprised when my colostrum came in, but she never said anything about it. She was VERY excited when my milk came in though!

[TiredX2]

Of people I know (well enough to know their nursing stories) IRL the oldest was 5. I know a nursling that just weaned who will turn 5 in May (so at 4.5) and one who is going strong at 4.25. DD weaned at 50 months (4 years, 2 months) and DS is still nursing at 40 months.

Online, if I "know" mother_sunshine that is probably about the longest, though I feel like I have seen an occasional post by someone with an older nursling. One problem, of course, with determining the oldest weaning is when (and if) you count the last weaning.

I consider DD to have weaned at 50 months, but that was just the obvious end. We celebrated her weaning (Build-A-Bear pigs, lol) but she would ask every once and a while until last summer (when she was 5.5). And realistically, this winter she has pretended to try a couple times (DS occasionally invites her to join him, lol). So, I have considered her weaned for going on 2 years but she has probably nursed, or tried to (and I mean by that actual mouth on nipple/areola suckling activity) at least 20 times in that time period. So, did my DD wean at 50 months or is she not yet weaned (since, for all I know, she may ask again today, or tomorrow, or the next day?). When you are talking about kids who are down to every week, or a couple times a month, or .... it is sometimes hard to place that rather arbitrary line.

[mother_sunshine]

Originally Posted by helkat

hi michelle -

i can't believe you nursed to 7.5 years! i don't mean that in a bad way at all - i just find it hard to grasp! did you plan on nursing that long? how often did you nurse when she was older? how did others react?
i'm sorry i have so many questions, i am just fascinated!

thanks,
helga

Hi Helga,

(Thanks for sending me a PM first.) I think it's best to make this public since maybe others might have the same questions/curiosity.

I started out thinking I would breastfeed dd for 2 years, but when she didn't miraculously wean then, and nursing was just as important to her as it was before, I went with the flow. I didn't plan to breastfeed for 7.5 yrs, we took it one year at a time. It never felt right to wean dd because she always needed it along the way. And, most importantly, breastfeeding never felt unnatural and it always felt right to continue. So I was immune to other's views for the most part because I knew that they had not BTDT. Dh gave me a hard time at times because it was such a new concept to him and because most men don't have that understanding of a mother's intuition and mother's instincts (unless they were raised exceptionally well maybe?). My Mom questioned it because she was also new to it. I talked about it with a couple of my friends when dd was 3-6yrs old (topic never came up afterwards). The only negative reactions I ever got were from people in parenting forums, basically because I am telling "the World" there, so anyone can listen and respond. Oh yeah, bad experience on an airplane once too, but we survived and she didn't change my mind any. I have always tried to approach it with honesty and openness rather than shame or embarrassment. However I have always been fairly careful with who I talked about it IRL with because I don't like to open myself to conflict or pain, if I sensed the person will respond that way.

Anyway...Nursing decreased as dd got older. It went up and down, sometimes she nursed a lot and other times just a little. Toward the final few months, she decreased from once or twice a day to once or twice a week, then back to daily, then weekly again, until she was taking such long breaks that my milk stopped coming in. She no longer wanted to nurse when my milk wasn't there, so she decided to wean.

HTH.

Aloha,
Michelle

[mother_sunshine]

BTW, the "oldest nursling" (that just doesn't sound right to me) that I know of IRL is 9yrs. I met this wonderful mother on MDC.

[mother_sunshine]

Originally Posted by TiredX2

So, did my DD wean at 50 months or is she not yet weaned (since, for all I know, she may ask again today, or tomorrow, or the next day?). When you are talking about kids who are down to every week, or a couple times a month, or .... it is sometimes hard to place that rather arbitrary line.

Hmmmm, that's a tough one. Dd has popped on to see if I have milk 2 or 3 times since she declared herself weaned last summer, but I didn't really consider that actually nursing because she popped right back off (it was less than a few seconds). But if she was actually nursing and not just popping on and off then I would still consider her to be nursing and not weaned. But that's just my over-technical opinion. :LOL

[SagMom]

The oldest I knew irl was 5.

I'll be nursing a 5 y/o myself in a few weeks. Never imagined we would go this long--we just took it one day at a time and here we are. It helps that this is my 3rd nursling though--when my oldest weaned at 2 1/2 everyone I knew thought that was an outrageously long time to nurse. I got a lot of pressure and crap about it. Then #2 nursed until almost 4, and now here I am with #3 ready to celebrate 5 years.

The older I get, the younger a 5 y/o looks :LOL so I tend to look at them as being too little for a lot stuff they're expected to do, rather than too old to nurse.

[helkat]

So, do you ladies nurse in public - I mean, I know how ignorant people are, so if you do nurse in public, the looks must be aweful - I guess you gotta just ignore them though, right?
If you DON'T nurse in public, is it because your child only nurses around nap times and bedtime - or because you just DON'T nurse in public. If your child were to ask to nurse in public, what do you do?

My DD is only 7 months old and she is exclusively on breastmilk. I only planned on BFing for 1 year, but I really love BFing and don't think either of us will be ready to wean at 1 year. I really wanted to TTC again in July and now I am so torn!

Thanks for all your responses ladies!

~Helga~

[stafl]

IRL - six years, but the vast majority of women I know IRL nurse for a few weeks or maybe even a month or two before their doctors tell them it's not working for whatever reason. Seriously, that is the #1 reason I hear women tell me why they "couldn't" nurse, their doctor said so. they never once thought to question their doc's authority, or to seek info somewhere else.

online - well, I know there are some members here at mdc that have nursed until 7 or 8 years
though I can't really claim to "know" them

[~Megan~]

I've gone to LLL meetings and most of the moms nursed till 3 or 4. One was nursing her 4 yr old there.

[SagMom]

Originally Posted by helkat

So, do you ladies nurse in public - I mean, I know how ignorant people are, so if you do nurse in public, the looks must be aweful - I guess you gotta just ignore them though, right?

~Helga~

The last time I nursed in public was at a playground. No one said anything, and if there were any looks, I didn't notice them. Ds was 3 1/2.

Now, he only nurses at bedtime and first thing in the a.m. I never told my kids they couldn't nip, they just all, at one point or another, quit nursing during the day so it wasn't an issue. The looks honestly don't bother me--most were shock or surprise, rather than nasty. My m/o was to just smile at them and continue my conversation or whatever. When I was nip my first baby, I was sure everyone was staring at me, but you know, when you've got others running around you become far too preoccupied with then to care about what "look" any stranger is giving you.

[doctorjen]

The oldest I've known in real life was about 5.5, or maybe 6. He'd been weaned a little while when I met him and his mom, but neither could remember exactly when he'd weaned, only that it was during kindergarten some time!
Right now, I only know one 2 people with nurslings older than my own. One is 2 mos older than my dd, and one 3 mos older. My dd is 20 mos. My LLL leader's ds just weaned at around age 3, and I had one patient who was nursing an older toddler whose ds weaned while she was pregnant recently at around 32 mos. Her little boy was one of the first patients I saw in practice after finishing residency when he was a jaundiced newborn and she had pretty much given up on breastfeeding. We worked out a plan to get him going and her milk supply up, and she ended up nursing for over 2 1/2 years! Unfortunately, this doesn't happer too often to me. A pp mentions lots of people weaning because the doctor said so. So why don't people nurse longer because I said so?!

[callmemama]

We really slowed down on NIP after ds turned 3, mostly because he was less interested when we were out and about. But I also had concerns that he would be old enough to understand if someone did make a nasty comment - its never happened to us though. I recently learned that one of my newer friends nursed one of her daughters until she was 4+! I shared that I was still nursing my 5yo and that we planned to CLW. I don't normally share the info unless I'm pretty confident the person will be supportive, kwim? A couple of years ago, we graduated from the LLL toddler meeting to a pre-schooler meeting! But it no longer going and was only advertised by word of mouth. So sad that society still has a long way to go.

[TiredX2]

Hmmmm, that's a tough one. Dd has popped on to see if I have milk 2 or 3 times since she declared herself weaned last summer, but I didn't really consider that actually nursing because she popped right back off (it was less than a few seconds). But if she was actually nursing and not just popping on and off then I would still consider her to be nursing and not weaned. But that's just my over-technical opinion.

I agree. Just wanted to emphasize how ambiguous "nursing" can be as a child ages. Not that *you* would need that pointed out :LOL

I don't remember the last time DD NIPed. I know it was after DS was born (31 months). DS still NIPs on occasion, certain places more often than others. (he is 40 months)

[Mrs Dimples]

Well, due to my job situation I am in contact with LOTS of mamas who are much more committed to BFing than is the norm here, so...

I work in a store that caters to nursing moms, with IBCLCs on staff, slings, AP books, nursing bras, pumps, etc. So I have kind of a wonderfully skewed view of what is "normal".

My co-workers are currently nursing 2-year olds and 4-year-olds (in addition to the under-one-year crowd). I had a lovely conversation with a mama who came into the store one day who CLW all of her many children (don't remember exactly how many) and the one who nursed the longest was eight years old at the time of weaning.

I can't soeak for the customer, since she didn't mention NIP, but my co-workers with the 2-year-olds NIP several times a day. Those kids are two boob-a-holics. :LOL The mama of the 4-year-old does not NIP. I believe she only nurses 1-2x a day.

HTH.