Parenting is the hardest job I've ever had. Especially because I never imagined there'd be so much pressure coming from any and every person imaginable as to what I should do and shouldn't do as a parent. While I take most of what I see and I hear in terms of parenting with a grain of salt, more than six years after becoming a mom for the first time, I'm still in awe of some parenting fads that seem simply extreme to me.
My plan is to bring some of these to your attention to see what you think about them. The first one has to do with breastfeeding and for how long you should it.
Read more in ¿Qué más?: Is breastfeeding for 6 months unrealistic for some moms?
As I've written about this topic in the past, I'm 100% for breastfeeding, even when my first experience doing it wasn't as natural and ultimately wondrous as everyone promised me it would be. Luckily, I was more successful with my son, whom I breastfed until he was nearly one year old. I stopped earlier because I went back to work and the whole pumping and storing breast milk didn't really work for me.
Regardless, I always, always knew that I would only breastfeed my son until his first birthday. While I totally respect moms who do it for much longer than that, I have a really hard time understanding why anyone would breastfeed a child who's older than 3, and that's already a stretch… So I almost died when I saw this video of an 8-year-old girl who still breastfeeds! Say what? Yep! And what's more amazing is that the mom in the video says she truly believes children should decide by themselves when they want to be weaned.
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That's why she breastfed her first daughter until she was 5 years old and, at the time of the video, was still breastfeeding her daughter at 8 years old. Again, I'm all for breastfeeding and I'm totally aware of its benefits and all, but I'm sorry, there's something just utterly wrong with the sight of a child taking up the entire couch while sucking on her mom's breast. Weird. Very weird. Don't you think? Extreme parenting fads at its best!
For how long did you breastfeed? Do you think children should decide when to be weaned?
