728x90
my iParenting
From Our Sponsors
e-newsletters
Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters

new terms of use
new privacy policy
award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
Home › Articles › Weaning › Child-led Weaning

Child-led Weaning

The Whys and Hows of Child-led Weaning

By Jessica Woods

Pages:  1  2  3  4  

  • What, exactly, is child-led weaning?
  • Will a child nurse forever if you let him?
  • If a child is still nursing when she is a toddler, will it interfere with her nutritional intake?

What Is Child-Led Weaning?
"I think of child-led or natural weaning as letting the child set the pace of weaning," says Beverly Morgan, IBCLC, an international board certified lactation consultant in Austin, Texas. As the child grows ... they gradually come to the time in their life where they feel they have outgrown nursing."

Amy Davis*, a La Leche League co-leader in Northern California, nursed her son until he was 4. She believes natural weaning is about "acknowledging that breastfeeding meets more than nutritional needs; it meets developmental and emotional needs as well."

It is common to wonder how long your nursing relationship will last and how it will end. Left to their own devices, some children will wean themselves at 9 or 12 months, and some will choose to nurse until they are 4 – or older.

According to research by University of Texas Anthropologist Katherine Dettwyler, author of Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives (Aldine de Gruyter, 1995), "In societies where children are allowed to nurse 'as long as they want,' they usually self-wean ... between 3 and 4 years of age."

Dettwyler says that, from a biological perspective, the maximum predicted age for a natural age of weaning in humans is two and a half yars with a maximum of seven years.


Pages:  1  2  3  4  

Want to see more?

Comments

There are no comments for this article yet.Be the first to add a comment.

Post As:
Enter your comment below:
Title
Comment Text
CAPTCHA
Please note that any comments submitted become the property of Disney Family / iParenting and can be edited and posted at our discrection.