What is the best age to breastfeed?

During the seven-day National Day holiday, one thought is getting stronger and stronger – I need to wean my third child! I saw a mother in a small group sharing her experience of weaning from breastfeeding until she was over 2 years old. I couldn’t help but @ her, wanting to learn more from her experience. Unexpectedly, after casting an @, half of the country exploded, and a group of enthusiastic mothers sent different greetings. Some mothers ask, isn’t your child still young? Why do we need to wean? If you can persist, just persist. Some mothers ask if they have encountered any obstacles. They believe that no matter how big the obstacle is, they can be overcome. One mother even said bluntly, don’t wean easily. If you get sick frequently after weaning, you will definitely regret it. This battle completely frightened me. Although I vowed to breastfeed her until she was 2 years old, Lisa, who is now almost one year and four months old, loves breast milk so much that she drags me around all day just to drink milk and not eat much. She wakes up four or five times at night. , when she wakes up, she wants neinei, she wants neinei… This posture has seriously affected her eating and sleeping, so I came up with the idea of ​​weaning. Fortunately, I am no longer a new mother, otherwise I would have been frightened and frightened by the admonitions from the mothers in the group and hastily changed my decision, blaming myself for being too selfish for giving up so easily. Looking back on the three babies I nursed, from being ignorant about breastfeeding, to insisting on breastfeeding until they were 2 years old, to now being more relaxed about breastfeeding, I have a strong feeling – breastfeeding is very personal. When it comes to cultural issues, everyone has their own choice. To be tolerant to your mother is actually to be tolerant to yourself. When I was a new mother, from the first day I breastfed Xiaopai, I was already trembling and worrying about weaning. Because my mother told me early on that weaning a child is very scary. Some people have to hide away from the baby for a week, and some people have to apply wind oil essence on the nipples, and the baby cries so hard that he wants to die. Half of the lives of adults and children will be lost. Compared with not being able to wash my hair for a month after confinement, this horrifying news spread by my mother was the existence of a giant shadow when I became a mother. At that time, I didn’t have much knowledge about breastfeeding, and there was no advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics about breastfeeding for at least half a year. When I returned to work after my maternity leave, I ignorantly and fearlessly added milk powder to my baby. Soon my milk supply became less and less, and around 7 months old, Xiaopai completely fell in love with milk powder and said goodbye to my \”granary\” without any nostalgia. I was overjoyed and a little disappointed. It turned out that weaning was so easy and not as scary as my mother said. But if I had known that weaning was like this, I might have been able to enjoy the satisfaction and sweetness of breastfeeding. In short, raising Xiaopai has always been a mess. If it were put today, I would probably be the target of comfort for many mothers who \”hate iron but cannot make steel\”. \”You have to go to work, so you can breastfeed. There is no reason for you to add milk powder!\” \”If you add milk powder, your milk will become less and less. Do you know that weaning is an inevitable outcome?\” \”Children?\” Drinking milk powder so early will increase the risk. Have you, a mother, ever thought about it?\” After reading too many \”reviews\” of the same model, I was secretly ashamed of how I blushed and couldn\’t even feed milk. What the hell. I\’m pregnant with my second child, Ning Ning.Begin to work hard. I read one breastfeeding book after another and made a vow to myself that I would defy all odds and feed her until she was two years old! I did follow this route at first, but as soon as I was out of confinement, I developed breast blockage, a high fever of almost 40°, and the pain was so painful that I felt like my soul was about to leave my body. I still pretended to be calm and went to see a breast-feeding specialist. Come to your door. Later, I read Ma Yili\’s blog about her breastfeeding experience, which made me burst into tears. They say breastfeeding is wonderful, but it must be very difficult and tiring to stick to it, and it requires a huge amount of physical and mental effort. I got acute mastitis three times in 9 months while feeding my eldest child. When I was feeding my second child, I had mastitis with high fever (there are many safe medications for breastfeeding), herpes zoster (as long as the herpes does not break and the fluid does not come into contact with the baby), and I went abroad for 35 days. The filming lasted for three and a half months, and I persisted for nearly 12 months without weaning for a day. You can have a hundred reasons to say that I really can\’t hold on, because I have to travel, work, or I am sick and too tired. However, as long as you want to hold on, you only need one reason, because I want to! At that time, I sighed, Ma Yili, how much perseverance it takes to overcome these painful pits one by one, but it only lasted for one year. As someone who wants to feed me for 2 years, I still have a long way to go. No one expected that, only nine months into my journey to Ningning, a big hole fell from the sky: I was pregnant again! The unexpected arrival of a new life made me panic. My first reaction was, can I still breastfeed? So I frantically searched for information and learned about the term \”relay milk\”, which means that Ning Ning can continue to eat until the third child is born, and the third child will continue to eat. I tried doing this for a while, but not long after, I started to suffer from morning sickness. This has always been a must-have program for me during my pregnancy. There was no surprise at first, but because I couldn\’t eat, my body suddenly collapsed into a paper figure, as if it was going to topple over when the wind blew. Weaning must be done, otherwise life will be cut off. Poor Ning Ning didn\’t know what was going on, so she suddenly wanted to say goodbye to Neinei. Of course she wouldn\’t even kill her. The little guy really recreated the horror movie scene my mother used to film with her mouth, crying so hard that the whole building shook. My father and I were both confused by her crying. Fortunately, my auntie had her own opinion. Every time she hugged Ningning and hid in the room to comfort her, and she would give her a bottle after her crying became quieter. At that time, I was full of guilt for Ning Ning. As soon as I saw her clear eyes, tears burst out from nowhere. I hated myself for being such a cruel mother and not being able to fulfill my promise to feed her until she was 2 years old. If any friend hits us and says, \”You are too cruel to Ning Ning, why don\’t you just hold on?\” I will probably want to jump off the building after hearing this. It is said that there is a chain of contempt for breastfeeding in the parenting circle. Those who have always breastfed their babies can look down on others and look down on bottle-fed people. Those who only use breast milk should look down on those who feed mixed babies. Those who feed their babies milk powder can only stay at the bottom of the chain. Bottom. Especially mothers who gave their babies milk powder early were accused of being irresponsible, not loving their children, and only caring about themselves. In fact, according to my current situation, if I want to continue feeding, it is not impossible to feed until the age of 2, but then I think about it, why do I have to persist until the age of 2? 2 years oldIs it the passing line for maternal love? Being 2 years old means that I have tried my best to give my child the best and I owe her no more, so I can feel at ease, right? But my overall sleep, my body, and Lisa\’s healthy eating and sleeping habits seemed to be more important than this shackles of maternal love. Every mother has an ideal mother in her heart, and she longs to be the same as her ideal mother. However, whether she can achieve it or not, reality is the final say. The mother\’s body and mood, the support of people around her, and the child\’s condition all affect the feeding process. This string is already tight enough, and it does not need to be tightened by another \”mother\’s love passing line\”. A mother in France asked her doctor what is the best age to feed her child? The doctor answered her that any time you choose is the best time. Rather than breastfeeding making you a \”great\” mother, I care more about your own mood and choices, and whether you will become baby blue (postpartum depression) because of this. What a touching passage. I really hope that we can give each other such tenderness.