Mum gives reasons why she will continue to breastfeed her four-year-old daughter

A mum, Natasha Keane, has revealed that she is still breastfeeding her daughter even though she is four and a half years old, saying that she will only stop feeding her daughter when the little girl tells her to stop breastfeeding.

Keane continues to breastfeed her youngest daughter Grace, although she is ready to start school.

The 38-year-old mum-of-three who has revealed she is an advocate for breastfeeding practices natural stage weaning – where a infant wants to stop breastfeeding on its own.

She says she feels it has helped both six-year – old Ellie and four-and-a-half-year-old Grace build strong immune systems since they were born, as only one of them has ever been sick.

According to her, she had to quit breastfeeding after a couple of months due to medication when she was a first-time mum at 19, but at that point she felt that nursing was ‘creepy’ after a year.

‘I wanted to do it for longer, but I was only 19 back then and didn’t think I could question my doctor,’ she said.

‘I cried so hard for about a week afterwards. Stephen struggled to take his bottle and it was very stressful.’ 

After meeting her husband Adam, and falling pregnant together with their first child, she decided that this time around she wanted things to be different and vowed to be prepared more.

Her determination had her join a local breastfeeding group.

‘I walked into my first meeting, and saw a woman tandem feeding her three-year-old and 18-month-old, with one at each breast,’ she recalled.

‘My jaw hit the floor. I genuinely had no idea it was possible to feed children past the age of one – let alone two at the same time.

 ‘Instead of judging, I simply asked questions.’

She began researching other groups, talking to other mums and reading articles on extended breastfeeding. She also read that infants are passed on valuable antibodies to help protect them from infection through the milk of their mother

‘There’s a saying in the community – ‘Don’t offer and don’t refuse.’ ‘Putting that into practice with my girls meant that, while I wasn’t sitting them down like clockwork, offering them my milk, I wasn’t saying no if they asked.’ 

 She started breastfeeding Ellie with no deadline in mind and when Grace was born two years later, she would tandem feed with one on each breast. ‘I tandem fed for two years,’ she said.

 ‘I was a little apprehensive at first about the practicalities of it all, but you find your own groove, and it gets easier the more you do it. 

 ‘As Ellie was a little older by then, I could explain to her to be patient and let Grace latch on and settle in first. ‘Every single night, they would fall asleep without fail, one on each breast, holding hands.’

While Ellie stopped wanting to breastfeed just before she turned five, Grace keeps suckling once a morning and once a night. But Natasha is still dealing with negativity which she blames on miseducation of people.

‘People see breastfeeding as fair game – something everyone is allowed to have an opinion on and criticise,’ she said.

‘I never would, as it is every mum’s choice, but I know if I said something about bottle feeding, it would be unacceptable. ‘I have received some difficult comments over the years. 

“When Grace was just eight months old, I had somebody say to me that I should be force-feeding her into weaning by that point. I just thought, “What would you say if you knew I’m also feeding her older sister?” 

‘I don’t think people are deliberately trying to shame me, or be evil, though. It’s a lack of education – even within the medical profession.

‘We have lactation specialists, but not many of them, and most doctors and nurses aren’t armed to the teeth with the same level of information. That’s how you end up with mums like I used to be, who don’t realise you can feed past a year, or think it’s wrong to.’