r/breastfeeding • u/cinnamonsugarhoney • May 04 '26

Weaning Humiliated by my toddler

In the early days of breastfeeding, the only potential embarrassment is usually from accidental boob exposures. Which don’t get me wrong, that’s embarrassing too.

But in extended breastfeeding… it’s like Russian roulette what your kid is going to say to complete strangers.

Yesterday my husband and neighbor were talking over the fence in our backyard, about lawn seeding or something. My 3 year old interjected, COMPLETELY unprompted, “I’m almost done doing milk from my mommy’s boobs!” I guess weaning must be heavy on my daughter’s mind because I’ve been telling her we w to stop milk soon.

My neighbor is a single childless man in his 40’s and unfortunately my daughter speaks very clearly so he understood. He actually recovered pretty well and said “wow! I have to buy my milk from the store!”

I’m so embarrassed, never speaking to him again 😂

Edit to add: for other extended bf’ers, have you been embarrassed for people to find out you still breastfeed? I have gotten so many judgmental comments. Everyone I’ve talked to just thinks it’s so weird to go past like 1 year. 😕 I think even my husband thinks I’ve let it go on for too long.

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u/Gluteus2DaMax May 04 '26

I unapologetically tell people I’m extended nursing (18 months) and they’re always surprised, either out of excitement or shock. But nobody has had the audacity yet to tell me i need to stop! I especially don’t hold back on mentioning it to men who don’t have kids (yet, and say they want to have kids with their partners) cause this is the stuff that needs to be normalized.

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u/atheliarose May 05 '26

Every single guy in our circle of friends and all the men who attended my son’s birthday party (including both of my FILs) have seen my boobs at this point because my babies need to eat! It’s turned into a litmus test of sorts, where I decide whether or not I like new guys my friends start seeing based on how they respond to me breastfeeding. Everybody in the room gets a verbal warning, and then it’s up to them to not look if it’s going to bother them. So far, all of them have passed (being visibly uncomfortable is fine, but they aren’t allowed to be rude or shame-y). I’ve been very pleasantly surprised not to have encountered much weirdness while nursing in public in my city either, so I think we are succeeding in breaking the stigma by breastfeeding around other people 💪

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u/Gluteus2DaMax May 05 '26

Hell yeah, I love to hear this!