Pediatrician's Advice: How Long Should You Breastfeed?
Pediatrician Milivoj Jovančević explains how long it is advisable to breastfeed a child and warns that at a certain age, bonding exclusively through breastfeeding may reflect delayed emotional development.
Pediatrician Milivoj Jovančević says that if we were to compare children with other mammals, they should ideally be breastfed for five to seven years – reports the portal Biti roditelj.
“Breastfeeding is extremely important, and from a biological point of view, there is no reason not to breastfeed for two, three, or even four years. But breastfeeding is not just biology, not just nutrition – it is also an important channel of communication, emotional maturation, and the child’s growing up. If you have only one child and it reaches the age of one, one and a half, or two years, and is continuously dependent on you – meaning the entire concept of communication between mother and child is still in the style of mother–little baby, while the child is already one and a half, two, or three years old – that is a sign of an overly close bond, that the child has remained in the attachment phase and has not begun the process of separation, i.e., independence.
So, if the communication is in the style of mother–little boy or girl, who occasionally comes for breastfeeding and cuddling, that is completely fine. It is very pleasant to have the child close, and it is also very nice for the child to be at the breast, but if you have only one child, there can be a delay in emotional maturation.
Looking back over past decades, it was normal for a woman to have five, six, ten, or even twelve children. She would produce milk for ten to twelve years, and it was not unusual for the oldest child, just before starting school, to come to the mother, nurse a little, and then run off to school. In that case, the child was mature, emotionally separated, and there was no problem. If there is an overly close relationship, we can recognize it when the child, whenever it feels discomfort or displeasure, always seeks comfort at the breast. In that case, there are no more mature patterns of behavior – conversations, cuddling, kissing. Those are absent, and everything is reduced to non-verbal, physical communication. That is a sign that something is not right if the child is already two or three years old, especially in the case of a boy, who at that age should start getting closer to the father in order to learn male patterns of behavior,” says prim. dr. sc. Milivoj Jovančević.
