Recently, the media has been paying a fair bit of attention to families practicing extended breastfeeding. Extended breastfeeding is a broad term that covers mothers and children who continue their breastfeeding relationships past the age of 1 year. Mothers who encourage and support nursing toddlers are frequently maligned in the press as curiosities, weirdos, or hippy nutcases.
I disagree. I think there are far more of us who practice this than anyone realizes — the fear of public shame often silencing discussion. I think we do ourselves a disservice by not sharing our experiences with other mothers, by discussing this topic in a much broader forum. How can extended breastfeeding be seen as anything other than “freaky” if we don’t normalize it by bringing it out in the open?
I don’t know very many people who set out when pregnant with the specific intention of nursing a toddler.



