Re the discussion about whether some suggestions to get the baby to sleep
more at night might keep a mother breastfeeding longer -- this is no doubt
true for some people.  However, mothers spend an inordinate amount of time
and energy stressing over why their baby (or themselves as mothers) don't
fit the culturally-constructed norm or ideal.  Because mothers in the US are
told, in many ways from many different sources -- Ezzo literature, "What to
Expect" books, their doctors, friends, neighbors, relatives -- that young
children SHOULD sleep through the night at a specific, early age, they
naturally stress about their child who won't/can't conform to these
expectations.  Just like they get all stressed out when their baby wants to
breastfeed "every 45 minutes" because they had expectations of 3-4 hour
feedings.

The problem is with the expectations, which are unrealistic, and don't
account either for human variability or for how human babies were designed.
Human babies were designed to feed every 20 minutes or so for a few minutes
each time, not every 3-4 hours for a 20 minute feast.  Human babies were
designed to wake up often at night to feed and cuddle, and night waking is
normal throughout life.  If our expectations for babies were not so
different from our babies expectations for themselves, much of the problem
would disappear.  Because of lot of women don't *really* mind the night
wakings themselves, but they worry because their baby "isn't normal" -- when
in fact, he is!

Kathy Dettwyler