What does your nursing toddler call your boobs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, the breastfed kids are the smartest?

Not all - just the ones who were BFed until 7.

[Anonymous]

I gave my 2 years old DS some cheese this morning on his doctor advise to test out his milk allergies. After a few bites, he was coughing, choking, and vomiting. All the he wanted was nursing at that point. I gave him some zyrtec and proceeded with nursing. I was so glad that I am still nursing him. He is obviously physically not ready to wean. For the extremely rude PP that labeled me as deviant, you are so sick. Why would you deprive my DS of his most suitable milk and insist that I should feed him something foreign to make you more comfortable!! If your kid is sick, wouldn't you do whatever that is within your disposal to help him? If you don't know what circumstances I am facing, DON'T JUDGE ME!! And I am not asking anyone to pat me on my shoulder for nursing my DS, but next time if you see me or someone else nursing their toddlers, keep your deviant thoughts and evil mind to yourself!! I don't need your approval!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who knew that this thread would get so heated!!! I think that breast feeding is awesome...but there comes a point in time when breast feeding is no longer nurtritionally neccessary. I worked at a daycare where one of the children whose mother would nurse her when she picked her up at the end of the day. She would just sit down on the floor and her daughter would lay her head on her mom's lap and nurse. The little girl was 4 years old! Go ahead...flame on. That is much too old for a child to nurse if there are other food sources available. This child ate solid food and drank milk from cups, so why is there a need to nurse at that age?

Sometimes moms need to find other ways to bond with their children.

And this bothered you ... why?

How did it involve you?

[Anonymous]

For those who keep touting the scientific published literature, I would appreciate hearing from somone who has actually read and critically thougt about the cited studies.

[Anonymous]

I think it's funny (& sad) that someone actually calls nursing past infancy deviant behavior. Go back in time just a few hundred years... for the vast vast majority of the history of our species, children were nursed for YEARS. Virtually all of them. Yes, things are different now in some ways (obviously-- and, no I am not suggesting we want things to be just like they were then), but how is such a natural behavior suddenly deviant? This is similar to claiming that eating fresh produce is deviant because we have canned and frozen easily available in our "civilized" society. Or that sex is deviant because we have IVF now. Breastfeeding beyond one year of age may make some uncomfortable because of RECENT, LOCATION-specific societal norms, but that does not make it wrong or gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who knew that this thread would get so heated!!! I think that breast feeding is awesome...but there comes a point in time when breast feeding is no longer nurtritionally neccessary. I worked at a daycare where one of the children whose mother would nurse her when she picked her up at the end of the day. She would just sit down on the floor and her daughter would lay her head on her mom's lap and nurse. The little girl was 4 years old! Go ahead...flame on. That is much too old for a child to nurse if there are other food sources available. This child ate solid food and drank milk from cups, so why is there a need to nurse at that age?

Sometimes moms need to find other ways to bond with their children.

And this bothered you ... why?

How did it involve you?

It bothered me because it bothered other parents who were picking up their children while the 4 year old was nursing in the most high traffic area at this daycare. Do YOU think that it is typical for a 4 year old to be breast fed? Do YOU think that a 4 year old should be breast fed in a public place with no discretion from the mother at all? Do YOU think that the other parents and children that were uncomfortable with this should just suck it up because this parent wanted to breast feed her 4 YEAR OLD CHILD at pick up time, instead of waiting for the 5 minutes that it would take to get home?
It DID involve me because I'm the one who got to hear the most complaints about it because I was the one who was regularly closing at the daycare. You're damn skippy it involved me, because I had to try to smooth it all over with the other families and I had a lot of kids in that class ask me why the daycare girl still drinks from her mom. It's an awkward position to put people in, and it's worse when it can be avoided. It would have been completely different if the child wasn't as old as she was, but the truth is that the age matters and attitude of the parent matters. I think that some nursing moms seem to like to cause a commotion and when it's addressed, then get all up in arms about their right to feed their children. Yes, all moms have that right, no one is disputing that. As I said before, nursing is a great thing. I'm just going to say it. In my opinion, a nursing 4 year old is very off-putting and it's awkward to be around. Don't even say a word to me about how I could have just left the room. It was in a common area where everyone retrieves their childn's things at pick up time. I couldn't leave the area because it was also the place to sign kids in and out. This family lived 5 minutes away, so the breast feeding session could have waited until then, but every single day at pick up time, she breast fed her. When she was approached by the director, she threatened to pull her daughter and did the whole "I have the right to nourish my child" bit and threatened a law suit and the director backed down. After that incident, the mom went out of her way to be even more obvious about nursing and even started sittting closer to the sign in/sign out computer. So yeah, I take issue with that and it absolutely involved me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's funny (& sad) that someone actually calls nursing past infancy deviant behavior. Go back in time just a few hundred years... for the vast vast majority of the history of our species, children were nursed for YEARS. Virtually all of them. Yes, things are different now in some ways (obviously-- and, no I am not suggesting we want things to be just like they were then), but how is such a natural behavior suddenly deviant? This is similar to claiming that eating fresh produce is deviant because we have canned and frozen easily available in our "civilized" society. Or that sex is deviant because we have IVF now. Breastfeeding beyond one year of age may make some uncomfortable because of RECENT, LOCATION-specific societal norms, but that does not make it wrong or gross.

I can agree with you...to a point. You make some valid observations. I think that the reasons that children were breast fed for as long as they were in the past was out of neccessity. Other sources of food were not so readily available. For the record, I don't think that nursing a child past 12 months is deviant at all. I've known plenty of mothers who have nursed for a couple years and it's all good. But let's be honest, it does make some people feel uncomfortable to see a child who is old enough to eat and drink on his/her own latching on in a public place and nursing. I'm not saying it's deviant behavior, I'm just saying that it does go against some societal norms and it is considered by some to be taboo.

[Anonymous]

Once at the pediatrician, I witnessed as a 4 year old who standing beside her seated mom, unbutton mom's shirt, reach inside mom's bra, take the breast and start licking the woman's nipple. I could see the entirety of the woman's nipple because the child was not latched on.
The mother never looked up from her magazine. This image is seared into my mind forever and I still gag when I think about it. It is gross and I shouldn't have to look at that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Once at the pediatrician, I witnessed as a 4 year old who standing beside her seated mom, unbutton mom's shirt, reach inside mom's bra, take the breast and start licking the woman's nipple. I could see the entirety of the woman's nipple because the child was not latched on.
The mother never looked up from her magazine. This image is seared into my mind forever and I still gag when I think about it. It is gross and I shouldn't have to look at that.

Yeah, that's exactly what I am was trying to express in my posts about the nursing 4 year old at daycare. The image really does get stuck in your brain but the feeling of awkwardness is even stronger than the visual!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who knew that this thread would get so heated!!! I think that breast feeding is awesome...but there comes a point in time when breast feeding is no longer nurtritionally neccessary. I worked at a daycare where one of the children whose mother would nurse her when she picked her up at the end of the day. She would just sit down on the floor and her daughter would lay her head on her mom's lap and nurse. The little girl was 4 years old! Go ahead...flame on. That is much too old for a child to nurse if there are other food sources available. This child ate solid food and drank milk from cups, so why is there a need to nurse at that age?

Sometimes moms need to find other ways to bond with their children.

And this bothered you ... why?

How did it involve you?

It bothered me because it bothered other parents who were picking up their children while the 4 year old was nursing in the most high traffic area at this daycare. Do YOU think that it is typical for a 4 year old to be breast fed? Do YOU think that a 4 year old should be breast fed in a public place with no discretion from the mother at all? Do YOU think that the other parents and children that were uncomfortable with this should just suck it up because this parent wanted to breast feed her 4 YEAR OLD CHILD at pick up time, instead of waiting for the 5 minutes that it would take to get home?
It DID involve me because I'm the one who got to hear the most complaints about it because I was the one who was regularly closing at the daycare. You're damn skippy it involved me, because I had to try to smooth it all over with the other families and I had a lot of kids in that class ask me why the daycare girl still drinks from her mom. It's an awkward position to put people in, and it's worse when it can be avoided. It would have been completely different if the child wasn't as old as she was, but the truth is that the age matters and attitude of the parent matters. I think that some nursing moms seem to like to cause a commotion and when it's addressed, then get all up in arms about their right to feed their children. Yes, all moms have that right, no one is disputing that. As I said before, nursing is a great thing. I'm just going to say it. In my opinion, a nursing 4 year old is very off-putting and it's awkward to be around. Don't even say a word to me about how I could have just left the room. It was in a common area where everyone retrieves their childn's things at pick up time. I couldn't leave the area because it was also the place to sign kids in and out. This family lived 5 minutes away, so the breast feeding session could have waited until then, but every single day at pick up time, she breast fed her. When she was approached by the director, she threatened to pull her daughter and did the whole "I have the right to nourish my child" bit and threatened a law suit and the director backed down. After that incident, the mom went out of her way to be even more obvious about nursing and even started sittting closer to the sign in/sign out computer. So yeah, I take issue with that and it absolutely involved me.

1. You are right about the high-traffic area. The mom should have nursed in a place where she wouldn't have been in others' way.

2. Fielding complaints from daycare parents was part of your job.

3. If you or others found it awkward to be around a nursing preschooler, you could have left the room or not looked.

4. There is no "I have the right to nourish my child" *bit*. It's a fact that she had a right to nurse anywhere she was, by law, permitted to be. Therefore there was no "bit" as her legal rights existed, and she was within them. Whether she was obnoxious about it was another question, but legally, she was completely in the right.

Daycare workers need to accept that parents who choose to do this are within their legal rights.

So actually, no, it didn't involve you, beyond the extent to which you *chose* to be involved.

3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once at the pediatrician, I witnessed as a 4 year old who standing beside her seated mom, unbutton mom's shirt, reach inside mom's bra, take the breast and start licking the woman's nipple. I could see the entirety of the woman's nipple because the child was not latched on.
The mother never looked up from her magazine. This image is seared into my mind forever and I still gag when I think about it. It is gross and I shouldn't have to look at that.

Yeah, that's exactly what I am was trying to express in my posts about the nursing 4 year old at daycare. The image really does get stuck in your brain but the feeling of awkwardness is even stronger than the visual!

You poor thing. Maybe you should get some therapy to recover from the trauma of having retained that visual.

[Anonymous]

Regarding the individual who said that extended nursing is deviant ... this is true, in that deviant means deviating or departing from the norm. The majority of moms in the US do not engage in extended nursing, and thus, it is something different than what most moms do. However, the individual who used the term deviant obviously intended it to imply that extended nursing is inherently bad or wrong. The same way that I would be vaguely uncomfortable or taken aback if a man sat next to me on the metro wearing a miniskirt, I am vaguely uncomfortable or taken aback when I see a mom nursing a 2 + year old. But hey, if it works for the man in the miniskirt or the mom and 2 + year old, more power to them. They're not bad or wrong for doing what's right for them, but I don't think I'm bad or wrong for noticing, "hmm, that's kind of unusual."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who knew that this thread would get so heated!!! I think that breast feeding is awesome...but there comes a point in time when breast feeding is no longer nurtritionally neccessary. I worked at a daycare where one of the children whose mother would nurse her when she picked her up at the end of the day. She would just sit down on the floor and her daughter would lay her head on her mom's lap and nurse. The little girl was 4 years old! Go ahead...flame on. That is much too old for a child to nurse if there are other food sources available. This child ate solid food and drank milk from cups, so why is there a need to nurse at that age?

Sometimes moms need to find other ways to bond with their children.

And this bothered you ... why?

How did it involve you?

It bothered me because it bothered other parents who were picking up their children while the 4 year old was nursing in the most high traffic area at this daycare. Do YOU think that it is typical for a 4 year old to be breast fed? Do YOU think that a 4 year old should be breast fed in a public place with no discretion from the mother at all? Do YOU think that the other parents and children that were uncomfortable with this should just suck it up because this parent wanted to breast feed her 4 YEAR OLD CHILD at pick up time, instead of waiting for the 5 minutes that it would take to get home?
It DID involve me because I'm the one who got to hear the most complaints about it because I was the one who was regularly closing at the daycare. You're damn skippy it involved me, because I had to try to smooth it all over with the other families and I had a lot of kids in that class ask me why the daycare girl still drinks from her mom. It's an awkward position to put people in, and it's worse when it can be avoided. It would have been completely different if the child wasn't as old as she was, but the truth is that the age matters and attitude of the parent matters. I think that some nursing moms seem to like to cause a commotion and when it's addressed, then get all up in arms about their right to feed their children. Yes, all moms have that right, no one is disputing that. As I said before, nursing is a great thing. I'm just going to say it. In my opinion, a nursing 4 year old is very off-putting and it's awkward to be around. Don't even say a word to me about how I could have just left the room. It was in a common area where everyone retrieves their childn's things at pick up time. I couldn't leave the area because it was also the place to sign kids in and out. This family lived 5 minutes away, so the breast feeding session could have waited until then, but every single day at pick up time, she breast fed her. When she was approached by the director, she threatened to pull her daughter and did the whole "I have the right to nourish my child" bit and threatened a law suit and the director backed down. After that incident, the mom went out of her way to be even more obvious about nursing and even started sittting closer to the sign in/sign out computer. So yeah, I take issue with that and it absolutely involved me.

1. You are right about the high-traffic area. The mom should have nursed in a place where she wouldn't have been in others' way.

2. Fielding complaints from daycare parents was part of your job.

3. If you or others found it awkward to be around a nursing preschooler, you could have left the room or not looked.

4. There is no "I have the right to nourish my child" *bit*. It's a fact that she had a right to nurse anywhere she was, by law, permitted to be. Therefore there was no "bit" as her legal rights existed, and she was within them. Whether she was obnoxious about it was another question, but legally, she was completely in the right.

Daycare workers need to accept that parents who choose to do this are within their legal rights.

So actually, no, it didn't involve you, beyond the extent to which you *chose* to be involved.

3.

Did you not read the part about not being able to leave the area. It was in a common area at pick up time and it's not like I could leave the area. It's called being accountable for the other children in care who were waiting to be picked up. I'm not disputing that she has a legal right to feed her child in whichever way she chooses, I take issue when it is done in a place where the rights of other people aren't being considered. You're right about one thing, I could have not looked, which would have been preferable, but it's a little hard to do that when children are pointing it out and very uncomfortable parents are pointing it out to you.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON that this mother couldn't have waited for 5 minutes to nurse her daughter. She would have been home by then and the child was old enough to understand the concept of waiting for a few minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who knew that this thread would get so heated!!! I think that breast feeding is awesome...but there comes a point in time when breast feeding is no longer nurtritionally neccessary. I worked at a daycare where one of the children whose mother would nurse her when she picked her up at the end of the day. She would just sit down on the floor and her daughter would lay her head on her mom's lap and nurse. The little girl was 4 years old! Go ahead...flame on. That is much too old for a child to nurse if there are other food sources available. This child ate solid food and drank milk from cups, so why is there a need to nurse at that age?

Sometimes moms need to find other ways to bond with their children.

And this bothered you ... why?

How did it involve you?

It bothered me because it bothered other parents who were picking up their children while the 4 year old was nursing in the most high traffic area at this daycare. Do YOU think that it is typical for a 4 year old to be breast fed? Do YOU think that a 4 year old should be breast fed in a public place with no discretion from the mother at all? Do YOU think that the other parents and children that were uncomfortable with this should just suck it up because this parent wanted to breast feed her 4 YEAR OLD CHILD at pick up time, instead of waiting for the 5 minutes that it would take to get home?
It DID involve me because I'm the one who got to hear the most complaints about it because I was the one who was regularly closing at the daycare. You're damn skippy it involved me, because I had to try to smooth it all over with the other families and I had a lot of kids in that class ask me why the daycare girl still drinks from her mom. It's an awkward position to put people in, and it's worse when it can be avoided. It would have been completely different if the child wasn't as old as she was, but the truth is that the age matters and attitude of the parent matters. I think that some nursing moms seem to like to cause a commotion and when it's addressed, then get all up in arms about their right to feed their children. Yes, all moms have that right, no one is disputing that. As I said before, nursing is a great thing. I'm just going to say it. In my opinion, a nursing 4 year old is very off-putting and it's awkward to be around. Don't even say a word to me about how I could have just left the room. It was in a common area where everyone retrieves their childn's things at pick up time. I couldn't leave the area because it was also the place to sign kids in and out. This family lived 5 minutes away, so the breast feeding session could have waited until then, but every single day at pick up time, she breast fed her. When she was approached by the director, she threatened to pull her daughter and did the whole "I have the right to nourish my child" bit and threatened a law suit and the director backed down. After that incident, the mom went out of her way to be even more obvious about nursing and even started sittting closer to the sign in/sign out computer. So yeah, I take issue with that and it absolutely involved me.

1. You are right about the high-traffic area. The mom should have nursed in a place where she wouldn't have been in others' way.

2. Fielding complaints from daycare parents was part of your job.

3. If you or others found it awkward to be around a nursing preschooler, you could have left the room or not looked.

4. There is no "I have the right to nourish my child" *bit*. It's a fact that she had a right to nurse anywhere she was, by law, permitted to be. Therefore there was no "bit" as her legal rights existed, and she was within them. Whether she was obnoxious about it was another question, but legally, she was completely in the right.

Daycare workers need to accept that parents who choose to do this are within their legal rights.

So actually, no, it didn't involve you, beyond the extent to which you *chose* to be involved.

3.

Did you not read the part about not being able to leave the area. It was in a common area at pick up time and it's not like I could leave the area. It's called being accountable for the other children in care who were waiting to be picked up. I'm not disputing that she has a legal right to feed her child in whichever way she chooses, I take issue when it is done in a place where the rights of other people aren't being considered. You're right about one thing, I could have not looked, which would have been preferable, but it's a little hard to do that when children are pointing it out and very uncomfortable parents are pointing it out to you.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON that this mother couldn't have waited for 5 minutes to nurse her daughter. She would have been home by then and the child was old enough to understand the concept of waiting for a few minutes.

Did you not read the part about *avert your eyes*? Don't want to see? Don't look.

I agree that she should not have nursed in a high-traffic area.

Other people in the vicinity don't have "rights." She OTOH does have the right to nurse, anywhere she is legally permitted to be. Others can look, or not look, or leave the room; their choice. If children are pointing it out and parents are uncomfortable, too bad. If you must respond, you tell them that she is feeding her child, that you are sorry that they feel uncomfortable, that this is what she is choosing to do, that she is within her legal rights.
O
You say that there is absolutely no reason that this mother couldn't have waited for 5 minutes to nurse her daughter. Maybe so, from your point of view (we don't know what hers is). Regardless, that doesn't matter, because she chose to nurse her WHERE SHE IS LEGALLY PERMITTED TO DO SO.

Therefore it is YOU, and not the mom, who needs to adjust your attitude.

[Anonymous]

I'm glad that the 4yo's mom (and others who nursed past 12mo) had the balls to nurse in public. I didn't with #1 past a certain point because I was afraid of the stares from ignorant, judgmental people. Sounds like I was right to expect that...

Hopefully I'll have more confidence to nurse in public longer with #2. Maybe if our kids see that and think "hey that's normal" then the next generation will grow up a little more open-minded. I don't see much hope for this one.