Breastfeeding - No hardlines here...just plenty of soft curves!

As regular readers and good friends know, the one thing you don't find here is hardlines, or heavy dogma. Lots of ranting, and U turns and experiments and latest passions. A pretty hop and skip over the picket fence and back which divides the mainstream and alternative worlds, equally flummoxing and enraging both sides.

Today's Guardian article is a case in point. It reports on fresh scientific evidence which contradict WHO advice, announcing that six months of exclusive breastfeeding is NOT the optimal approach to babycare now, and that infants need other foods from four months.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/14/six-months-breastfeeding-babies-scientists

So I am out of the closet, again! This is what I have done, with all three of my babies, in secret, so as not to upset hardline LLL friends. And with feelings of confused guilt. My babies were signalling that they wanted to be joining in with family food times. They wanted to touch, taste and try. They were still hungry despite ample milk. And so I let them lead. With little nibbles of toast and ice cream and chocolate and stewed apple and mashed banana. Yes, tick wheat, dairy, sugar. I am in the eyes of many a bad mama! And counter to medical and LLL and WHO current dogma.

I felt I had to be dishonest because what I was doing was NOT OK. I have not forced food on my babies to speed up weaning. I have breastfeed all to well past the year mark, two years and beyond with my first. But I have honoured my babies' desire to grow up and dig in to all aspects of family life. My guiding thought is always... what would they do in the jungle, if they had no scientific advice, no cultural dogma and taboo? What are my mother instincts and my baby's drives telling me? That is my compass. My secret compass. There are no hard lines in this house. They lead to dishonesty I find. Humans tend to be soft-edged in reality. And I am more curvy than most!