Had a wonderfully dedicated, tandem breastfeeding mom come by yesterday
to ask me for info to share with her new family doc.  Seems she had to
change because of insurance changes with the new year.

She had taken her 3.5 yr old and 8 mo in to be seen.  8mo weighs a hefty
24 pounds and has only recently begun a few solids.  Mom works and pumps
2x/d (dad is STAH and feeds EBM + few solids during day) and then they
practice family bed sleeping arrangments and allow unlimited night time
nursing.  Doc first questions what she has been feeding this baby to
make him "so fat".    Then he tells her that she needs to wean him from
the night-time nursings as she is causing him to build up vastly too
many fat cells and that this will cause him to be obese.  He went on to
explain that she was "training him to have trouble with insomnia later
in life" by allowing him to wake like this and feed.  And that allowing
him to sleep with parents would create later psychological problems for
him.

Then when doc heard that the 3.5 yr is ___still____ nursing he nearly
came unglued, telling mom that she was going to cause severe emotional
problems for this child.  That this caused undue dependence for a mother
to have an older child nurse, and that it was the mother's
responsibility to make the child wean immediately.

I shared KD's "natural weaning" article with her and referred he to LLL
WAB for info on "plump babies."  She came to be more for validation of
her belief that what she is doing is right, rather than be really unsure
of herself.  Dad is wonderfully supportive of BF and child lead weaning,
so he just thought it was rather an issue of "crazy doc."

Melinda Hoskins, MS, RN