Extended Breastfeeding

The UK has the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world, and lots of Brits feel triggered by the idea of a toddler breastfeeding, so let's talk about it.

I Was Supposed to Stop Breastfeeding This Week. Then Everything Changed.

This week was supposed to mark the gentle end of my breastfeeding journey. I’d been preparing my little boy for weeks, reading stories about sending “mummy milk to the moon”, planning a sweet, meaningful ceremony to honour our shared experience. We were ready. We thought we were ready.

And then, bang. Illness struck. A vomiting bug, not unlike norovirus but meaner, longer, and stranger. Forty-eight hours of relentless sickness, followed by days of diarrhoea. Nobody else got it. I still have no idea what it was. But I do know this: the only thing he could keep down during those days of misery was breast milk.

Were it not for breastfeeding — the fact that I had this ready-made, perfect hydration source available on tap — we may well have ended up in hospital, hooked up to a drip.

And it wasn’t the first time breast milk had stepped in as hero. Three months ago, it got us through chickenpox. It’s soothed every molar that’s dared to push through. It’s been the magic potion on planes, trains, beaches, and bed-bound days. I’ve done both — my first was formula fed — so I speak from lived, embodied experience when I say: breastfeeding has felt like a superpower.

When this magical milk can prevent hospital admission, instantly soothe pain, offer immunity, comfort, nourishment, hydration and sleep — all at once — maybe we need to start reframing the conversation. This is the biological norm. It’s what the female body was built to do, and when we’re supported to do it the experience can be very positive.

But yes, I’m tired. Nursing a two-and-a-half-year-old through illness, day and night, is no joke. Especially when we’d gradually eased down to a once a night feed and suddenly found ourselves back to constant, round-the-clock comfort. And yet, the moment he needed more, my body responded. The milk came in. Incredible.

Then, just as I’m crawling out the other side of this exhausting week, I see a clip online: Karen Millen, describing extended breastfeeding as “selfish”, an “addiction”, “bad” for the toddler. I felt pretty pissed off to be honest.

To be clear: I’m not here for online dogpiling. I don’t believe in cancel culture, and I know that hurt often lies behind these kinds of comments. Karen has since apologised, explaining that her own breastfeeding journey was traumatic — marked by pain, mastitis, and struggle. And that deserves compassion. But here’s the thing: your pain is not a reason to project shame onto others.

The UK has the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world. We are swimming in ignorance, misunderstanding, and a culture that seems to actively resent women for using their bodies in the way nature intended. The contempt is real — and I don’t use that word lightly. I’ve seen it in the wild. A colleague once sneered at a woman breastfeeding in a restaurant, calling it “unhygienic.” What, I wondered, could possibly be unhygienic about feeding a baby?

You only have to look online to see the bile. Angry men shouting at women on the tube for daring to breastfeed. People suggesting we should just “do that at home.” Which begs the question: do they expect us to stay home for six months, until babies are weaned?

My partner often says this has something to do with porn culture — that so many people are so hyper-sexualised they can no longer see a breast as anything other than a sex object. We’ve forgotten what breasts are actually for. The pacifier was modelled on the breast — not the other way around.

And then there’s the legacy of formula marketing. For decades, formula companies convinced women, especially in vulnerable communities and low-income countries, that bottle-feeding was better. Some of that marketing was so unethical it was later banned. But the damage was done. Entire generations, boomers especially, were raised with the belief that breast milk was inferior. That judgment lingers. And it shows up in the way we talk about breastfeeding today, especially breastfeeding beyond infancy.

But let’s talk facts.

The World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding for at least two years. Biological anthropologist Katherine Dettwyler — drawing on primate research and cross-cultural studies — suggests the natural weaning age for humans might fall between 2.5 and 7 years. Indigenous cultures around the world support this. The !Kung San in South Africa, the Tsimané in Bolivia, and the Inuit communities in the Arctic — they all breastfeed their children well into toddlerhood and beyond.

And there’s good reason. Breast milk doesn’t suddenly become useless after six months. It continues to adapt to the child’s needs — even up to 48 months and beyond. It still contains antibodies, immune factors, white blood cells. It still protects against infections. Still supports brain development. Still offers vital nutrients, especially when illness or food refusal hits.

And that’s just the baby. For mothers, breastfeeding reduces the lifetime risk of:

• Breast cancer

• Ovarian cancer

• Type 2 diabetes

• Heart disease

So when I hear someone say breastfeeding a toddler is selfish? That it’s unhealthy? I feel sadness, not just for me, but for all of us. Because it reveals how disconnected we’ve become from biology, from our bodies, from each other.

We have to do better. We need to remove shame and replace it with support. We need to stop projecting our discomfort onto others. If you’re “grossed out” by a mother feeding her child, that’s your discomfort to sit with — not hers to hide.

As for me, I’m not sure when we’ll stop now. I thought we were done, but maybe we’re not. Maybe we’ll go another week, another month, or more. And maybe that’s what needs to happen — not just for my son, but for me. To honour this journey. To honour what my body has done.

Because this isn’t selfish. It’s the opposite. It’s giving. It’s love. It’s nature. And it deserves to be respected.