I’m not emotionally ready to stop breastfeeding my near 4-year-old

She doesn’t want to stop (Picture: Emma Bacon)

Feeling my baby starting to suckle for the first time, I felt a huge sense of relief.

Up to this moment there had been a monumental feeling of failure on my part, all because I hadn’t had the birth experience that I had expected.

But now, as my daughter latched, most (but definitely not all) of that fear was able to seep away. I’d achieved what I’d always wanted – to breastfeed my baby.

Little did I know that, nearly eight years and a second child later, I’d still be breastfeeding. 

Everything is such a blur from my eldest daughter’s delivery. However, when I stirred from my drugged sleep post-surgery a few hours later, I knew that I was desperate to feed her. 

Breastfeeding made me feel like a superhero (Picture: Emma Bacon)

I called for the midwife who helped me adjust her so that she was able to attempt a feed. And the moment she clamped down onto my breast, the emotional relief was enormous. 

Everyone had been telling me how lucky I was that we were both OK, but only then could I let myself begin to believe them.

Sadly, three days later I suffered a setback when the stitches from my C-section wound popped open, which the doctor said was my fault due to being a redhead and how we heal. To this day, I still don’t know how true that is but I felt like a failure all over again.

I carried that with me for a very long time – that it was my fault that the birth hadn’t gone to plan, that I didn’t heal because I was the problem – which meant I clung to the only shining light I had, which was that my little one kept wanting to breastfeed.

I was pleased to see my second daughter was happy to take the breast (Picture: Emma Bacon)

Breastfeeding made me feel like a superhero, like I had done something right in the whole ‘becoming a mother’ thing. So, for three years I carried on and I didn’t stop until she wanted to.

I realise that breastfeeding is a hugely contentious subject – and I’m sure my decision to keep going until she was three will seem ‘odd’ to some people – but, my own personal view is that a fed baby is a happy baby, whichever way you do it or however long for.

So, when our second daughter arrived in 2021, following a much more positive birth experience, I was pleased to see she was also happy to take the breast. I felt incredibly lucky that she fed well and once again I knew I’d continue for as long as she needed and wanted to. 

Except, she is nearly four years old now and she doesn’t want to stop.

I only feed my second daughter at nighttime now (Picture: Emma Bacon)

It’s not like I haven’t tried to find support for the process.

I’ve been to the GP to discuss what to do but feel the need to start with the phrase: ‘please don’t judge me’ because I know how frowned upon extending breastfeeding any longer than six months to a year can be and how freely people feel they can offer that opinion to you.

Once, when my daughter was about two, she asked to be fed while waiting in a dentist waiting room to which a woman sitting opposite me tutted it and said: ‘Goodness me, still doing that?!’

I felt extremely judged which is why, post the age of two, I only fed her at nighttime.

In my experience, when you first have a baby, you are bombarded by midwives, doctors, nurses, health care workers, and breastfeeding specialists to get the baby to latch. But once you’re through the other side – or, in my case, wanting to get to the other side – there is this feeling of abandonment.   

There’s no supportive system there, no advice and help on how to stop feeding and do it in the right way.

If you have a problem, then that’s on you (Picture: Emma Bacon)

Yes, it might seem simple to say to your three-year-old: ‘This has to stop now, Mummy’s milk has all gone’, but where is the emotional support on doing this after such a long connective precious bond? 

While the practical side of me knows that it needs to come to an end for the sake of my own health, and hers, I am also upset about it because I know she is the last child I will have – I will be 44 this year.

It makes me envy all the mothers with their babes in arms, breastfeeding and snuggling them and realising that I won’t have that again. 

I feel sad, lost, full of grief for the time I had like that, that went far too quick – despite at times, wanting it to because I was sleep deprived, or exhausted.  

On her fourth birthday, we are ending breastfeeding (Picture: Emma Bacon)

I suppose that’s why part of me hasn’t forced my youngest to stop. It’s like I can freeze her, us and the moment in time.

But, as the very kind GP said to me the other week, ‘it’s the hardest job in the world being a mother, we have to keep letting go, little by little and pushing them onto the next stage.’ And I know that’s what I will have to do, too.

I have already explained to my daughter that, on her fourth birthday, we are ending breastfeeding as the milk finishes then – she starts reception at school later on this year and it feels like the right time – and, so far, she’s seemed to accept that.

When the time comes it’s going to be tough, for both of us, but I’m so glad that I’m ending this breastfeeding journey on my terms instead of feeling pressured to.

At the end of the day, it’s my body, my baby, my choice.

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