I’m gonna be honest and say that I don’t really know too much about breastfeeding, but I’m fairly certain that you should probably stop doing it when you’re a little baby and not when you’re nine years old. That’s just freakin’ weird isn’t it?
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Nevertheless, this is exactly the situation that 50 year old Sharon Spink found herself in as her nine year old daughter Charlotte has only decided to stop sucking on her boobies a couple of months ago. Naturally, they both decided to cash in on this bizarre family trait and earn themselves about £50 each by sharing their really embarrassing and cringe story with the internet. Here goes:
When I came to have Charlotte, I had decided on natural term weaning. It’s nice for the child to be in control of when they want to wean, rather than forcing the issue. She naturally self-weaned earlier this year.
It was a gradual process and her choice. She was feeding about once a month if she wasn’t feeling great or was feeling a bit run down, and was going longer and longer without feeding.
Now she hasn’t done it for about two months.
She told me she would stop when she was 10 which will be in April next year but it seems to have come to a natural end earlier, although I would have allowed her to continue for as long as wants to.
As she’s been reducing anyway I don’t feel sad about it.
If she would have stopped suddenly I think I would have missed it, but it’s just nice that it’s come to a natural end.
It’s how I envisaged it would end. It was her choice and was done in a very gradual way.
We haven’t had a discussion about her not doing it anymore.. I just hope when she’s older she’ll remember that feeling of comfort and security it gave her rather than it being about feeding.
We have such a close bond and I’m convinced it’s because of breastfeeding her for so long.
I breastfed my first two children for a couple of weeks and my daughter Isabel for about six months but I ran into problems and felt like there was a lack of support.
When Isabel was four months old she lost weight and I had to supplement that with formula. I was determined to make it work for Charlotte.
Obviously there have been the negatives – usually from typical keyboard warriors who post their opinion.
I have been called every name under the sun. I’ve been told it’s child abuse, I’ve been called a paedophile and told it’s wrong and that I’m a freak.
I just want to let other mums out there who are wondering ‘should I or should I not?’ that this is normal and this is what children do.
If they feed for as long as they want to they will naturally wean.
In a lot of countries it’s perfectly normal to breastfeed older children and they will do it for a lot longer than we do in the west.
It feels empowering doing something like this.
Well I am usually a supporter of if it feels right then just do it – as long as it isn’t harming anyone else of course – and so I should be behind Sharon and her daughter but I just think it’s kinda weird and icky. It also kinda sounds like Sharon wanted to keep her breastfeeding as long as possible given her failures with her other children which seems kinda manipulative and creepy, although I definitely don’t think she’s a paedophile or anything like that. It’s just a bit weird – especially the fact that she wants to tell newspapers about it all. Never get that part of it.
For more breastfeeding, check out this woman who breastfeeds her son and his mate. Word fails me.