On 04/02/2012 12:19, Elizabeth Brooks wrote:
> My heart goes out to you, and to this whole family.  What a mess.
>
> Get to the guardian ad litem (GAL), and offer to provide him/her with
> background information and insight on extended BFg, and child attachment.
>
> Your biggest "risk" right now -- please hear where I am coming from --  is
> that you will overwhelm the GAL with too much information, delivered too
> passionately.

Agree completely with this, but not with a couple of other points:
>
> Take something short sweet and authoritative about BF.  I love ILCA's
> "Risks of Not BF" for that reason -- discussing short- and long-term health
> effects of BF, for both  mom and baby of BF.

The issue here is not over *breastfeeding*, but over *extended* 
breastfeeding.  It's vital to remember this, because the majority of 
society see them in completely different ways - breastfeeding a baby as 
something wonderful, good, and ideal, but breastfeeding a toddler/older 
child as ewww, wrong, perverse.  Those are the attitudes you're going to 
be up against.  Bringing up articles based on studies done on infant 
breastfeeding is therefore not going to be helpful here, because it 
isn't going to address the issue.  As I said elsewhere, the relevant 
extracts from the AAP's and AAFP's statements on the issue and possibly 
from Kathy Dettwyler's letter is likely to be of more help.


>
> Try to take the focus off of "BF" as a "problem."  The focus should be on
> the child's need for consistent attachment parenting, given his history --
> and that is best provided at this age-and-stage by BF.

Do remember that that last - the idea that breastfeeding is superior to 
all other methods of continuing a secure attachment with a toddler - is 
only an *opinion*, and that there isn't anything better than very 
questionable anecdotal evidence to back it up.  Pushing it too hard can 
backfire - it weakens your case to state as fact something that can't be 
backed up, and it may even alienate people who have formed secure 
attachments to their children in other ways, by effectively (even though 
only by implication) making their parenting out to be in some way 
inferior.  Of course, you can argue that breastfeeding may be important 
for this particular child as it's what he's used to and stopping it may 
be too abrupt a change for him to deal with (which may well be what you 
meant to say), but I'd steer clear of trying to make out that it's some 
kind of superior parenting technique in general terms.


Best wishes,

Sarah Vaughan

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