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A few years ago, before even trying to conceive, I participated in a nurse-in on behalf of a woman who – contrary to state law – was ordered to leave a shopping mall because she was nursing her baby. At the time, I was working for a state legislator in California and our entire office showed up to give moral and official support to her cause. (The mall issued an apology and made sure its employees were better educated about the law.) Apart from the glorious spectacle of a hundred nursing moms and babies, I recall the sight of a small child standing to nurse from his mama’s breast. I had never seen anything like this; I was shocked, and even a little bit alarmed.
In the words of Beth Schwartz, my former La Leche League leader, when you are exposed to a practice in parenting that seems unusual, "File it away, because you never know when you might find yourself open to it." I did just that.
Five years later, I now know that I would be happy to nurse my daughter as a pre-schooler or even a kindergartener, no matter that there are plenty of people out there who would find it strange. And why shouldn’t they? It’s not something that our culture supports, and if we don’t see it, we don’t realize that it is perfectly normal – even more biologically "normal" than the alternative of early weaning.
Katherine Dettwyler, a biological anthropologist who studies lactation in humans and other primates, says that breastfeeding should last from 2.5 to 7 years, and that most children wean themselves naturally between 3 to 5 years (Source: "A Time to Wean: The Hominid Blueprint for a Natural Age of Weaning in Modern Human Populations" in Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives, ed. Dettwyler and Patricia Stuart-Macadam).
It will be up to my daughter to decide how long and how much she wants to nurse. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends nursing for at least one year, and the World Health Organization recommends nursing for at least two years; the recommendations for both organizations state that nursing should continue as long thereafter as mutually desired.
I suspect that our weaning will be a gradual process, gently tapering off to be only at home, then only in the morning, naptime and at night, and then only at night, and then, someday, we will cuddle and talk about how much she used to love "na-na."
More Information on Extended Nursing
Websites
Books
- Mothering Your Nursing Toddler by Norma Jane Bumgarner (La Leche League)
- Our Babies, Ourselves by Meredith Small
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