breastfeeding critics - 5 months, 2 weeks, 3 days

I know, another breastfeeding in public post.. I just need to get this out.

Through Cole's 5 and a half months, he has taken a handful of bottles, mostly when I've been away - at a wedding, my reunion, and when we went to a restaurant, simply because I thought it would be easier, and because we were going to a restaurant with my parents. He has been nursed in a car (while parked), in Macy's, at the Big E (at the breastfeeding areas, yay for the La Leche League!). He was nursed daily in our living room without curtains until just recently. I've gotten up through the nights at every cry, and have responded to his every need.

For some reason, however, my parents still feel that it's ok for them to criticize how, how often, when, and where I choose to feed my son. It truly bothers me that the only 2 people that have not been supportive of my parenting choices have been my parents. I was able to discreetly feed my son while coaching t-ball by just turning my chair around for the first few weeks of his life. Parents were fine with this, and he was content and quiet and didn't disturb practice at all. Then my father came to a practice, and told me I should feed him in the car or cover him up, in the 90+ degree weather. At that practice, Cole screamed because he was hot and hungry and just wanted to eat.

My mother has had similar comments, too many times to recount, about how I should feed him in the bathroom, or will "helpfully" tell people that I need a place to breastfeed my son. She'll tell me that it might make people uncomfortable. Truly, most people barely notice if you're in a corner and the baby's quiet.

And just last night, they decided to bring up extended nursing. My mother likes to talk about me breastfeeding to her clients while she cuts hair. Of course, one of her clients mentions that once the teeth came in, it hurt, blah blah... So I, once again, feeling like I had to educate on the normalcy of nursing and allowing baby to wean when ready, told them that the average age for baby's to wean naturally is about 4 years. Of course this started the looks and comments of "once he can ask for it.." and "by then he'll remember..". I tried to explain that nursing continues to benefit the child, but it just made me feel like I'm trying to swim uphill, through tar. Who knows how long Cole will want to continue to nurse. I plan to nurse him until he's at least a year old, and I don't plan to "cut him off" for my own selfish reasons. Maybe he'll stop on his own around 1, maybe 2, maybe 3. We'll see. For a really interesting article about the "Natural Age of Weaning", http://www.kathydettwyler.org/detwean.html

My thoughts.. If you disagree with someone else's parenting choices, shut up. There's "your way", "my way", maybe a "better way".. but there isn't a reason to criticize someone's choices.