How long to continue breastfeeding for is a personal decision for each family to make. The World Health Organization and the National Health and Medical Research recommend exclusive breastfeeding (i.e. no other fluids or solids) for six months and then continued breastfeeding combined with solid foods for 12-24 months or as long as mother and baby desire.Even if breastfeeding has not worked out as you had planned, you can be reassured that even a few days of breast-milk has been important for your baby.
If you breastfeed your baby for just a few days, he will have received your colostrum, or early milk. By providing antibodies and the food his brand-new body expects, breastfeeding gives your baby his first and easiest ‘immunization’ and helps get his digestive system working smoothly. Breastfeeding is how your baby expects to start. It also helps your own body recover from the birth. Given how little it takes to offer it, and how very much your baby stands to gain, it makes good sense to breastfeed for at least a day or two, even if you plan to bottle-feed after that.
If you breastfeed your baby for 4–6 weeks, you will have eased him through the most critical part of his infancy. Newborns who are not breastfed are much more likely to get sick or be hospitalized, and have many more digestive problems than breastfed babies. After 4–6 weeks, you’ll probably have worked through any early breastfeeding concerns, too. Make a serious goal of breastfeeding for a month.
If you breastfeed your baby for 3–4 months, her digestive system will have matured a great deal, and she will be much better able to tolerate the foreign substances in artificial baby milks. Giving nothing but your milk for the first 4 months protects against allergies and gives strong protection against ear infections for a whole year.
If you breastfeed your baby for 6 months, without adding any other food or drink, you will help ensure good health throughout your baby’s first year of life, reduce your little one’s risk of ear infections and childhood cancers, and reduce your own risk of breast cancer. Exclusive, frequent breastfeeding during the first 6 months, if your periods have not returned, provides 98% effective contraception. The National Health and Medical Research Council and the World Health Organization recommend waiting until about 6 months to start solids.
If you breastfeed your baby for 9 months, you will have seen him through the fastest and most important brain and body development of his life on the food that was designed for him your milk. Breastfeeding for at least this long will help ensure better performance all through his school years. Weaning may be fairly easy at this age but then, so is breastfeeding! If you want to avoid weaning this early, be sure that, from the start, you breastfeed willingly to provide comfort, not just to provide food.
If you breastfeed your baby for one year, you can avoid the expense and bother of artificial baby milk. Her one-year-old body can probably handle most of the family foods your family enjoys. Many of the health benefits this year of breastfeeding has given your child will last her whole life. She will have a strong immune system, for instance, and will be much less likely to need orthodontic treatment or speech therapy. The National Health and Medical Research Council recommends breastfeeding for a year, or for as long as mother and baby desire, because it helps ensure normal nutrition and health for your baby.
If you breastfed your baby for 18 months, you will have continued to provide the nutrition, comfort, and illness protection your baby expects, at a time when illness is common in weaned babies. Your baby is probably well established on family foods, too. He has had time to form a solid bond with you — a healthy starting point for his growing independence. And he is old enough that you and he can work together on the weaning process, at a pace that he can handle.
If your child weans when she is ready, you can feel confident that you have met your baby’s physical and emotional needs in a very normal, healthy way. In cultures where there is no pressure to wean, children tend to breastfeed for at least 2 years.
Whether you breastfeed for a day or for several years, the decision to breastfeed your child is one you will never regret. And whenever weaning takes place, remember that it is a big step for both of you.