-“Do you still breastfeed her?” This was a child-less me in a state of concealed bewilderment when my friends’ two-year-old toddler, as eloquently as she could, demanded her boobie fix from her mum.

-“Mum, boobie…”

-“Here, sweetheart”

And off she went to entertain herself away…

Little did I know that, fast forward a few years, and it would be me, the recipient of the impertinent questions, asked by anyone amusedly shocked when they saw me breastfeed my 4-year-old. (Well, 4-years and 8 months, to be more precise).

Ok, yes! You read that right. My son turns 5 in June, and he still is pretty keen on his daily boobie fix. Shocking, I know. I do not judge you. We can’t help but feel a bit shocked when we see something we are not used to. And, let’s be frank: it is not every day that you see a pre-school infant being nourished -even figuratively – by their mother bosom.

How did it happen? I still ask myself that question. How did it happen and how did I come this far with it? Truth is, it all really happened spontaneously. During my pregnancy I never laid my eyes on a book or breastfeeding manual nor did I follow any Support groups. I did not know that the so-called La Leche League even existed. If someone asked me whether I was going to breastfeed, I merely shrugged off the question with a succinct “ I guess I will try.” I was short of any convictions or a determination. I did trust the scientific evidence of how breastfeeding gives babies the best start in life from a biological perspective, but that was it. No more research was done on my part.

Then my son was born, and my heart was ripped open. My labour and childbirth were far from smooth, and it lacked many of the experiences I had hoped for… there was no skin-to-skin contact, no sudden surge of oxytocin, Nothing. He was taken to the ICU hours after birth. What followed, aside from the sinking feeling of void, were blurry memories of confusion and sadness. Any new mum who devoted herself to reading about breastfeeding and its intricacies would have known that, in those circumstances, the breastfeeding journey was if not jinxed, indeed was borderline unrealistic, for skin-to-skin contact is vital for the oxytocin and prolactin, the hormones which make breastfeeding possible, levels to rise.

But instinctively I then knew I wanted to do it, so with my bruised self-confidence there, I was: breast pumping in the Intensive Care Unit. Sickly worried because the milk was not, “coming in,” surrounded by Stern-looking midwives who thought that the best way to boost my confidence in producing and storing milk, was to squeeze my nipples as if they were stress-relief rubber balls – “See, you’ve got milk…” I will spare all the details because I digress…

So, even after being separated after birth, after being deprived of the possibility of skin-to-skin , work on our bond and our ability to naturally get to know each other, after being fed by a nasogastric tube and being bottle fed  7 days into his new life, my son, as if by pure magic, got closer to me and latched-up spontaneously. No issues encountered. No nipple shields needed, no soreness or mastitis. With it, my confidence in my ability to feed my baby was instantly restored. The rest is history.

And with my new found confidence, I learned to breastfeed on the go, on the subway, while babywearing, in parks, planes, trains, restaurants, cafes, and pretty much in all public spaces, which I still do to this day whenever he demands it.

I learned to laugh off the comments of friends and family who, despite meaning well, could not help but questioning why “we are still doing it.”  I tell you: never have my breasts been in such public scrutiny at family gatherings where the same question usually pops up over and over again incessantly. “I will stop when he goes to University,” I say humorously…. “Well, you clearly are well on that track, honey.”

The truth is, we are still at it because we (or shall I say I)  do not know how to stop.

And even when sometimes I find myself telling him the overused sentence, “it is about time you stop, little man,”  I am sure that he will ween off it at some stage… that’s my hope. As a single mother myself, I can think of better things to tend to than delving a cunning plan to make him less keen on his mother’s breast. So I tell myself that it will happen when it is meant to happen. I shall go with the flow, and trust my instincts, as did the clueless and scared new mum I once was, and trust that everything will work out. Because, eventually, it will work out.

Any long-haul breastfeeding mums out there? Feel free to share your experience here. I would love to hear from you.