Only Twelve Months?

I have been nursing my baby girl Chicklett for 12 whole months! This is a feat that many mothers think is the longest amount of time you should nurse a baby and right after that milestone birthday they start the weaning process. Sometimes when over hearing women weaning their babies at a year my brain gasps and I think to myself, "You're stopping at only 12 months nursing?? Why??"

Being on the other side of the coin now nursing a 38 month old and a 12 month old... weaning just seems like the unintelligent misinformed thing for any mother to do. It is hard for me to take a step back and realize that not all paths are the same, and that ANY amount of time a woman is breastfeeding should be celebrated.

Three years ago when I was a new nursing mom I thought that 12 months was an eternity. The longest I had heard anyone nursing was to 11 months. Weaning at a year seems almost automatic in our society, it's assumed by pediatricians and an accepted practice among mothers. A rare few sneak through to 15-18 month range, but then usually outside pressures from family cause them to question their stance and force wean. Then there's bitches like me... I didn't listen to anyone other than myself and my son, and now my daughter. I just might end up tandem nursing a 7 and 5 year old.

Take Megz for example, she nursed her first to 8 months old and thought he self weaned. She knows now that it was nursing strikes and has now worked through those same issues with her second son and is coming up on 11 months of nursing. That is AWESOME! I am so proud of her every day for learning from the past and persevering through complicated nursing strikes and challenging times.

These other mothers I speak of might be in the place that Megz was two years ago. Unsupported, uninformed, and unsure. I never know if I'm going to sound like an elitist nursing snob, crazy crunchy hippie, or all around whack job if I try to talk someone into nursing past a year. Most of the time I'm hearing people after the fact... so then my informing them of extended nursing probably comes down as a judgement on their parenting choices. I want everyone to know how normal and beneficial it is to continue nursing past a year, but I know not everyone cares as much as I do.

It's easy to think that your 1 year old is a "big" kid now, no longer a baby. The fact of the matter is, and all three of us have noticed this with our second, a 1 year old is still just a baby. Chicklett BARELY takes in any solids and if she were weaning right now, it would not be in her best interest. I refuse to force her to eat solids, she will eat in her own time when SHE is ready. Until then, she gets her nutrition, comfort, and security at the breast. Afterall, she is JUST a baby at 12 months. She can't talk, doesn't walk, and is learning new things each day. She needs the important support that breastfeeding provides her. If, as a society, we stop thinking of 1 year olds as "big kids" we can collectively wrap our brains around nursing past a year. Afterall, it's more accepted to nurse a "baby" than to nurse a "big kid."

Bad Advice

When I was breastfeeding Olivia, as we approached the age of 1 I thought to myself, we've actually only been nursing 6 months, so it's not fair to either of us to wean. I'm just going to keep going. I didn't actually KNOW that people did this. When I googled toddler breastfeeding, I was astonished to learn I wasn't alone.
With Ella, the very IDEA of weaning at one never would have crossed my mind. Not even for a second. She'll be a year in 3 weeks (sob), and she still nurses throughout the night and at least every 3 hours during the day, although usually more. She can make it longer when I go to class (4.5 hours, with a snack of solids) but if the boobs are around, she's all up in the bizness.
Because we are approaching a year, I've been thinking about how some people DO wean at a year...and I really want to know how they do this. I'm not being judgmental, really I'm not. I'm honestly curious. If I were going to wean Ella at a year old, it'd be horrible. She's NO where near ready to wean and the idea of denying her breast just boggles my mind.
I decided to google "weaning at a year" to see what comes up. The first website is a website I absolutely detest. Every time I google something to do with parenting, this site comes up and the advice is almost always ::facepalm:: worthy. Kids Health article on Weaning frustrated me so much! They said:

Some experts say that after the first birthday is the best time to begin weaning because kids are more adaptable to change at that age. (A 2-year-old toddler, for example, is likely to be much more attached to breastfeeding and less flexible about giving it up.) A 1-year-old baby is also eating more solid foods and so may naturally lose interest in nursing. Engorgement will also become less of a problem for moms around this time because as the demand for breast milk decreases, so does milk production.

I mean, seriously...they are essentially saying if you nurse past a year, your toddler will be attached to you and be completely insatiable. ::facepalm...headdesk...sigh of frustration:: This blog post actually originally started as a question about weaning at one but now it's morphed into a frustrated blog post about getting bad information about breastfeeding. We see it all the time. We always try to correct it when we see it but it's like never ending. It can get so frustrating to encounter this ridiculous information all across the board.

As we approach our blogiversary (yeah, we're that dorky), I know I personally am looking back on why we started this blog. We started this blog because we wanted to share our experience about breastfeeding as well as provide support and information. We wanted to bust up the myths that are everywhere. As I was writing this post, and I came across some of these stupid webpages that exist, it really reminded me how important it is to keep this up. Keep up providing support. Keep up the information. The love.  The village.