Until what age should you breastfeed? How long should you breastfeed your baby?

Why breast milk is better than formula

Modern women believe that breastfeeding is not so important, because many mothers raised their babies on formula, and everything went well. Yes, it is true that sometimes you have to resort to artificial feeding, but there must be really good reasons for this, for example, the mother’s illness while taking serious medications that are incompatible with breastfeeding, or severe stress, as a result of which the woman is deprived of lactation.

Benefits of natural breastfeeding:

The baby is provided with a perfectly balanced diet that suits him well. It is much easier to breastfeed your baby than to spend time and money on choosing the right formula.
There is no need to spend extra money on food for a child under six months old. WHO experts do not recommend the introduction of any complementary foods until the age of 6 months from the date of birth of the baby.
The risk of allergic and other negative reactions is eliminated, provided that the mother eats properly and does not consume foods undesirable for breastfeeding.
A woman quickly gets back into shape and loses extra pounds, since breastfeeding requires a lot of calories.
A closer connection arises between mother and child, which contributes to the harmonious and proper development of the baby.
Lactation suppresses ovulation, providing a woman with additional protection against unwanted pregnancy.

A mother who wants the best for her child, without hesitation, chooses breastfeeding and supports it for at least one and a half years.

Many women are afraid of breastfeeding because of pain, loss of breast shape, mastitis and similar troubles. In fact, almost all fears are common myths. Properly organized breastfeeding will help you avoid problems and receive only benefits from the process. You can learn how to feed your baby correctly here.

There is an opinion that after a year, mother’s milk no longer benefits the child’s body. This is wrong! Breast milk is useful for a baby at any age, since the fat content and concentration of nutrients in it only increases over time.

Until what age should a child breastfeed?

Weaning a child from the breast is not related to the baby’s calendar age. “Look at the child, not at the calendar” is one of the mottos of the International Dairy League, which would be good for modern mothers to adopt. Very often, after feeding the baby for up to a year, or not more than a year, the mother begins to wonder, how can I stop breastfeeding now? After all, the child is already big? What prevents mothers from calmly continuing to breastfeed a “big” child is the strong opinion formed in our society that it is harmful to feed a child older than one year, this binds him too much to his mother, and the milk still contains nothing useful. Modern young women, for the most part, have never seen how a child, over a year old, still sucks on his mother’s breast, behaves. They perceive the normal, genetically determined, physiologically and psychologically based behavior of a child as something incredible. Unfortunately, relatives, friends and doctors, and even many child psychologists who have never seen a breastfeeding “runner”, cannot provide the mother with the necessary support. They usually make efforts to stop this “disgrace.”

Currently, only 10-14% of children receive breast milk up to 3 months, the rest are already artificial. The reason for stopping breastfeeding so early is not that mothers do not want to breastfeed, or they need to go to work early, or the poor environmental situation interferes with them. The reason is surprisingly simple and unpretentious: women simply do not know how to do this - breastfeed. Unfortunately, in modern society there is practically no one to learn them from. In modern civilized society, the female art of breastfeeding has been lost, and the culture of motherhood has been lost. A young mother, even if she is ready to learn motherhood, may not find a woman in her environment who has experience in breastfeeding and caring for a baby. She will have many advisers who actually have no idea about the natural needs of the child, but are confident that they are right. I would like to recommend that before listening to advice, the mother should ask how long the adviser himself breastfed and whether he received positive emotions from it? Unfortunately, for most mothers, the main sources of authoritative information about breastfeeding are now local pediatricians, who for the most part do not have personal, successful experience in breastfeeding and the necessary theoretical knowledge, but have extensive experience in monitoring artificial feeding.

What does breastfeeding a baby older than one year look like?

What behavior can be considered natural and correct? For example, this: The baby is applied to the breast in order to fall asleep at night and for naps, and is applied when waking up in the morning and after naps. The baby suckles several times at night, mainly in the early morning hours until he wakes up. During the day, he can drink his breakfast, lunch and dinner from his mother's breast. The baby attaches to the breast when he needs comfort for any reason (hurt, scared, tired). He can take a sip if he's thirsty. The first thing the baby does is attach itself to the mother's breast if the mother enters the house after a long absence. He often latches on when he is bored and has nothing to do, or when his mother takes a stationary position, for example, sitting down to talk on the phone. If the baby has a need to kiss, it can be difficult to distract him from this idea. A baby who behaves this way is not ready for weaning. Most children aged from 1 to 2.5-3 years behave this way.

Often mothers experience inconvenience due to the following:

they are “attached” to the baby and cannot leave him with anyone, because... mother's breasts are required quite often. But a child over one year old will not demand breasts from grandma, dad, or nanny. In the absence of the mother, the child gets used to behaving differently. He is quite capable, for example, of comforting himself by climbing into the lap of an adult. He eats great at lunch without needing his mother's milk. He falls asleep in his mother's absence if another person puts him to sleep.

a child may require breastfeeding in a place not suitable for feeding: in a store, clinic, on the street, in a restaurant, at a party. Mothers forget that the baby seeks comfort from the breast if it begins to experience discomfort. Often a mother goes with her baby to the store at the end of a walk, when the child is already tired, and then she still has to wait for something, endure the presence of a large number of strangers, sometimes noisy and stuffy... How can one not look for solace in a familiar place when one’s own strength is already at the end of? In such a situation, the mother can be asked to leave the store as quickly as possible and arrange a visit next time so that the child is not tired, if it is not possible to get to the store without the child. In the clinic, the baby is usually either bored when he has to wait a long time, or scared and in pain. In my opinion, a lactation consultant and a mother who fed a “runner”, there is nothing wrong if the child suckles a little while sitting in line in the corridor, if he has already read all the books and played with all the cars, ate an apple, and there is still a long wait. And if blood was taken from his finger, and consolation is needed immediately, the mother’s action should be automatic - give the breast. On the street, the baby needs to be held if he is in pain, he is seriously injured, this usually happens in the summer, when the baby runs around with bare knees and is minimally dressed. In such a situation, the child may have to be attached. Mothers are embarrassed by the need to “be naked” in the presence of strangers. But you don’t need to undress to feed your baby. All mothers who have breastfed for a long time are able to do this almost unnoticed by others. Sometimes the baby needs to be latched on the street if the walk is long and he is tired. We'll have to make an effort and plan our walk better next time. In a restaurant or guests, you should assume in advance that the need to suck may arise and dress accordingly and choose a suitable place. In general, it is probably clear that breastfeeding in public places can always be organized or avoided.

Often mothers want to wean their baby because of his poor appetite. The baby eats little other food and prefers breast milk to everything. In a natural situation, if the child gradually moved to the common table, the mother tried not to feed him other food, but to maintain the baby’s interest in food; there is no such thing as poor appetite in the second year of life. It is not breastfeeding that is to blame for poor appetite and lack of interest in food, but errors in the formation of the child’s eating behavior. If a child is weaned from the breast in order to force him to eat another food, there may be two scenarios: either the child will eat another food, or he will end up with a small child, who will be very problematic to feed.

Mothers and their relatives worry about the need to sleep with the baby and put him to the breast at night. In our society, co-sleeping is still considered a bad habit that needs to be eradicated. But until about the age of three, a child has a need to sleep together with his mother, regardless of the type of feeding. And this need goes away with age, just like the need for breastfeeding. If a mother, since the birth of her baby, has managed to organize a comfortable nighttime co-sleep, has learned to sleep with the baby and relax at the same time, night feedings of a child older than one year do not cause her any inconvenience. If the mother goes to work, then night feedings become more frequent and longer for a while. The baby compensates for the missing communication with the mother, receives the necessary tactile stimulation, albeit in a way that is not very clear to modern mothers, but quite natural in such a situation. In the same way, the intensity of night feedings increases if the mother begins to limit the baby’s need for daytime feedings when he is not ready for such a restriction. It's mom's fault...

Concerns about the decline in milk quality are completely unfounded. The mother’s body does not know that today the baby turns one year old and does not begin to produce second-grade milk. In the second year of lactation, milk continues to contain proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, essential vitamins, microelements, biologically active substances and much more that are optimal for the baby to digest. When a woman experiences lactation involution, her milk becomes similar in composition to colostrum and contains more immune defense factors than mature milk. Presumably, this is necessary in order to further support the baby’s body during weaning. If weaning occurs in a timely manner, it always coincides with the involution of lactation in the mother.

When is the right age for weaning?

In all mother-baby pairs, this is their age, since no mothers and babies are the same.
Some babies are ready to wean at one and a half years old, while others need breastfeeding until they are 3.5-4 years old. Most children, whose breastfeeding and relationship with their mother are organized naturally, are not ready for weaning at one and a half years. Most often, the time for weaning for them comes after 2 – 2.5 years. How does a baby behave when he is ready to wean?
Gradually, the baby's daily attachments become less and less. The child almost does not need consolation at the breast when solving some of his problems. If during the day a baby asks for the breast, and the mother offers to wait and distracts him with some activity, he does not remember his desire to suck for a long time. The baby no longer washes down his food with milk; he can fall asleep during the day with another person. If another person tries to put him to sleep at night, in the absence of his mother, the baby falls asleep without problems. During the night, the baby rarely attaches or does not attach at all, and in the morning, when waking up, he can often be distracted from the thought of sucking. A child who is ready for weaning has 1-3 feedings per day. Such a time always comes. The mother of a one-and-a-half-year-old baby who breastfeeds 10-12 times during the day cannot believe this. The mother is afraid that she will have to feed the baby until school, at least... In such a situation, I suggest you remember that breastfeeding is a natural process that has formed over millions of years of evolution. It has its own development patterns. All children are very different. There are babies who, at 1.5-2 years old, can easily do without breasts, and there are children who need their mother’s breasts until they are 3-4 years old. The statement that breastfeeding for more than a year is harmful does not fit into the biological framework, if you look at a person as a mammal from the order of primates. Great apes nurse their young for approximately six periods, equal to the length of pregnancy. In this case, the duration of breastfeeding for a person is 54 months, or 4.5 years. Some people may not like the comparison with monkeys, but biology must still be taken into account. In the first years of a child’s life, the foundations of his physical health are laid, his body’s systems are being improved, and the main brain growth occurs in the first three years of a child’s life. Breast milk contains a huge number of components necessary for the development of the baby. These components are not present either in the most modern mixtures or in adult food, and never will be. As mentioned above, these are immune defense factors, tissue growth factors, hormones and biologically active substances, forms of vitamins and ratios of microelements that are optimal for absorption. The child needs to receive all this not only in the first year of life. The time for weaning always comes and the weaning itself goes easily if the adults around the child, due to ignorance and existing prejudices, are not in a hurry and do not commit unnatural actions.

Liliya Kazakova for the magazine “Liza. My baby" Lactation consultant, pediatrician

How long to feed

We recommend reading: How to teach your baby to fall asleep without breastfeeding

Until what age should you breastfeed? As many experts say: “Don’t look at the calendar, focus on the child.” The age of weaning is individual for each baby. There are children who give up breastfeeding early, preferring other foods. Some babies are ready to suck mother's milk as long as possible.

Experts believe that you need to breastfeed your baby for at least 6 months. During this period, the baby will receive the necessary substances and antibodies, which will strengthen his immunity and ensure a safer and more comfortable introduction of complementary foods and the transition to new foods.

Six months is the minimum period; it is optimal to feed the baby throughout the first year of his life. It is believed that it is during this time that the baby’s immune system will become sufficiently strong, and the body’s systems and functions will improve their functioning. In these processes, mother's milk plays an important role, so it is unwise to stop breastfeeding before one year.

Immunity of a breastfed baby

Breastfeeding gives the baby the necessary and strong immunity. According to experts, a newborn child until about 5-6 months is protected by maternal immunity, which he received from the moment of birth. And it is believed that until this age, mother’s milk plays simply a nutritional, but not a protective role.

After six months, the production of mother's milk gradually moves to another priority direction - nutritional value fades into the background after receiving the much-needed child's immunity. This also applies to the production of antibodies to chickenpox, rubella and other viral pathogens.

But, in fairness, it should be noted that the immunity of a nursing woman during prolonged breastfeeding weakens slightly and the functioning of her body is depleted. This is due to the fact that lactation and feeding are the primary task of a nursing woman. And if during this period the mother does not eat well, her diet is not balanced, or the baby drinks a lot of milk, the woman’s body begins to use and burn its own resources, which leads to loss of health.

Does it make sense to maintain breastfeeding after a year?

Whether to continue breastfeeding after a year is the mother's decision. It happens that a woman herself is not ready to give up breastfeeding or she sees that breastfeeding is still a fairly important part of life for a child, in which case you can wait and postpone the end of breastfeeding. Today you can find two- to three-year-old babies periodically sucking on their mother’s breast.

Recent studies have shown that mothers who breastfeed their children for a long time (at least 1.5-2 years) have a lower risk of developing ovarian and breast cancer. It is worth remembering that everything needs moderation and it is impossible to feed a baby indefinitely. Psychologists believe that breastfeeding after the age of three can negatively affect the baby’s psyche. In addition, breastfeeding at this age becomes simply burdensome.

Reasons why you should not feed your child after three years:

By this age of the baby, a woman begins to work and lactation can cause anxiety and discomfort in the workplace.
Feeding a boy should be completed before three years of age, since it is at this age that the child becomes aware of his gender identity, and the sight of his mother’s naked breast is undesirable for proper and adequate upbringing.
The child becomes too dependent on the mother’s closeness, which causes problems with adaptation in kindergarten.
Often, older children demand the breast in public places, and refusal to feed them is perceived negatively, throwing tantrums.
Babies have difficulty falling asleep and cry until they receive the breast.

Of course, until what age to feed the child is up to the mother to decide, but there is no need to be zealous with the duration of breastfeeding. Many women believe that the longer they breastfeed, the closer the bond between them and their children. Yes, this is true, but we must give the baby the opportunity to socialize and understand that the mother is the main person in life, but not the whole world.

How much breast milk should you feed if you have problems with lactation?

Very often, mothers refuse breastfeeding when faced with problems that they describe as “the baby is not eating enough,” “the milk is not full-fat,” “there is no milk,” “the baby has lactase deficiency,” “an allergy to milk.”

We assure you that these are not problems, but only minor difficulties, which, if you follow simple rules, will be safely eliminated. Therefore, it should be understood that in most cases it is not correct to raise the question of how much to breastfeed a child if there are lactation problems.

The child does not eat enough. In the first days after birth, the baby receives only a small amount of colostrum - an extremely important substance with a thick consistency and yellowish color. It is necessary so that the baby can adapt to a new system of receiving food. Then transitional milk appears and after 2-3 weeks - mature milk. As a rule, if a child cries after eating, the mother immediately decides that he is hungry. It is important to be persistent here - in order for lactation to improve in accordance with the appetites of the newborn, you need to put him to the breast as often as possible, feed him on demand, and not by the hour.
The milk is not fat. In principle, such a concept cannot exist; nature itself made sure that the baby was fully fed with mother’s milk. Most likely, he simply does not have time to get to the rear, more nutritious one. The way out of the situation is to not change the breast until the child releases it. Mothers mistakenly believe that if the breasts are soft, then they are empty - this is not true. Let him be fully satisfied and, at his request, offer him another.
There is no milk. The solution is the same as in the first case - you need to establish lactation. It is necessary to understand that there are so few situations when the chest is really always empty that they are practically reduced to zero. It’s another matter if the milk “burnt out” due to the mother taking medications that she couldn’t do without. But even in this case, it is possible to restore lactation at any stage. While taking medications, it is advisable to pump to maintain milk production. Special herbal teas will also help to increase its amount.
Lactase deficiency and milk allergy. Lactase is an extremely healthy carbohydrate, the absorption of which requires the enzyme lactose. If this enzyme is not enough, then the child will have digestive problems. A milk allergy is the inability of a child’s body to absorb milk protein. It is now very fashionable to make such diagnoses and prescribe drugs, supporting pharmaceutical production. But none of this is needed, the solution is quite simple - a dairy-free diet for mom! It is enough to carefully study the composition of any product to determine whether it contains a dairy component. These problems will disappear over time.

So, how long should you breastfeed your baby? Any mother can continue breastfeeding as long as she wants, just be patient and healthy stubbornness!