WE all know the saying ‘breast is best’, but for how long?
There’s no set time to wean your baby off milk, but one mum from Australia has boggled the internet after revealing the age of her breastfed son.
29-year-old Lauren McLead - a doula from Perth - has been breastfeeding her two children since they were born, but trolls have branded her ‘gross’ and say that the kids are far too old for it.
The loving mum has been accused of child abuse after people discovered her son was still latching on at the age of five - and she’s breastfed her friend’s eight-month-old baby, too.
Lauren herself was breastfed until the age of two and she hoped she could do the same with firstborn Bowie, who arrived in August 2017. But the tot had other plans.
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Bowie celebrated his second birthday but had no intention of giving up mum’s milk.
Instead of making him go cold turkey, Lauren decided to carry on.
She welcomed another child - Tigerlily - in May 2020, and breastfeeds both of them.
Despite his age, Bowie still wants milk each bedtime and three times a week in the day. Meanwhile Tigerlily latches whenever she wants throughout the day.
The young mum may be subject to nasty comments, but it won’t stop her - she’ll carry on until her kids are ready to move on.
Lauren confessed: “I never thought I’d be breastfeeding my child aged five but I’m like any other mum doing the best I can for my children.
“It’s not weird or sexual, it’s completely normal and I get upset thinking about when we do stop. I don’t think Bowie will keep feeding until six.”
Responding to trolls who call her an “abuser”, Lauren said: “Occasionally people will say something really mean, coming from a lack of education but nobody has ever said anything to my face.
"Someone accused me of not feeding him food - of course we do. I believe we're doing the right thing for us.”
The loving mum also touched on her experience breastfeeding her friend’s baby.
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“It was a little strange feeding a baby who wasn’t mine, but not in a bad way,” she recalled. “It felt so natural and it was really nice to help my friend.
“It’s like that saying, ‘it takes a village’. People have been doing this since the dawn of time. Grandparents would feed their grandchildren.”
She says she’s been lucky to feed her children this way for so long and even donates express milk to other parents who need it.
Lauren believes that breastmilk is a comfort to her children and helps keep their immune systems strong. When the time is right and her children choose to stop feeding, she’ll accept that they’ve had enough.
