In less than a month my baby will be his first year, almost a full year in which I have breastfed "on demand", Just as I did with his older sister.
While breastfeeding is a practice that I absolutely recommend and promote and would do it a thousand times, breastfeeding for a year is ideal for the baby but it can become somewhat exhausting for the mother, at least according to my experience, especially with the second.
For starters, having the tit (let's call things by name) available 24 hours a day is acceptable when they are newborn babies, but when they grow up not so much. It happens to become more a game than a way of feeding, which I know is not just that, but not a toy.
I recently read the opinion of a pediatrician (I think of Carlos González, I do not remember it very well) that said that mothers tend to mistake feeding on demand with breastfeeding each time they cry.
And he is very right. It does not mean that we do not console them with the chest if something happens to them, that an extraordinary bond is established, but if we do it every time the child cries or is upset, it creates a situation that is too dependent. As advice, I would say do not use the tit as a solution to all problems.
Another consequence, in my case, is that the little girl has become accustomed to eating a small amount many times a day, and also at night. That is to say, that still with one year he wakes up two or three times every night and the only way to go back to sleep is to put it to his chest, even if he is not hungry.
I repeat again that the benefits are insurmountable, and that what I have said before does not disturb my balance of priorities. I put its benefit to my own comfort, but if you plan to love your baby for a long period of time, I recommend that you establish a “strategy” that favors both of you, so as not to be overcome by the situation.
It is an overwhelmingly personal feeling, but I think that a year of breastfeeding is my limit.
