4 months shy of his 2nd birthday my grabby little monster still nurses with much gusto. I even joke that he ‘strikes anywhere’ like for example one time when we were watching TV, the boy was beside me… suddenly he was nursing! I was wearing a v-neck knitted shirt that time and yet he easily got though that. Another incident was when we showering together.. well you get the drift.

“Delikado sa chicks toh” my mom keeps on saying. Hahaha

Seriously though, I am slowly weaning him from nursing. But sad to say I am failing miserably! I know it’s partly my fault. When he insists on nursing instead of taking his bottle I oftentimes oblige because he gets into a fit & cry. Also, it is beneficial for me when I’m nursing him for example:

• I don’t need to get up in the middle of the night to get him milk, I just roll over & nurse him.
• Nursing easily puts him to sleep, without it; It may take hours for him to fall asleep. He prefers to be sung! And I suck at that when I nurse him I can get away without singing. nyahahaha
• We save a bit on milk. He consumes 1 900g. can in 1 week and a half. If not; he’ll consume the can in less than a week.
• It’s our little bonding time (as if we don’t get enough!). I feel one with my baby when I nurse.
• It’s like exercising without really doing much (the way I like it.)
• I have an excuse to eat more….what?! I’m eating for two. ahahaha

So with all these benefits why am I in a hurry to wean the boy? That got me thinking; Society dictates that breastfeeding should only be done with babies up to 2 years. But some women breastfeed up until the age of 3 and more. This is called extended breastfeeding or “sustained breastfeeding”. It is believed that all benefits of human milk (nutritional,immunological and emotional) continue as long as the child nurses. This would also be a means for the child to bond with his mother.

So I read on negative impacts of sustained breastfeeding and found none.

I’ve actually found a very informative entry on extended breastfeeding from the site called Skinship and she quoted from Dr. Sears’s Baby Book (p.198): “Life is a series of weanings for a child: weaning from the womb, weaning from the breast, from your bed and from your home to school. The pace at which children go from oneness to separateness should be respected in all of these weaning milestones. /…/ We have studied long-term effects on thousands of children who have had timely weanings and have observed that these children are more independent, gravitate to people more than things, are easier to discipline, experience less anger and radiate trust./…/ In the normal process of oneness and separateness, it is not the mother who weans the baby, but the baby who weans from the mother.”

Having read that, I therefore conclude that it’s my baby’s right to nurse. Given that there are no major disadvantage of extended breastfeeding I will allow my son to self-wean. In his own pace. In his own time.