Mum-of-three says she will breastfeed her son until he is NINE if that’s what the boy wants

A mother who has been breastfeeding non-stop for nearly a decade is adamant that she will continue to nurse her third child until he decides to stop — even if that is at age nine.

Temeaka Tate has been battling trolls online and posting photos of her breastfeeding her daughter on Facebook at four and a half, but isn’t bothered by what other people think.

“I was proud not to be able to breastfeed anymore but was only breastfeeding so I took a lot of pictures,” Ms Tate told Daily Mail Australia of nursing daughter Bianca.

“They have all been reported as child abuse.”

The 34-year-old laughed off suggestions she had pressured Bianca to continue breastfeeding after she turned four.

“It’s not their body or relationship to comment on,” Ms Tate said of those who questioned her breastfeeding. “No one was forced.

“I ask people if they’ve ever tried to get a toddler to do something they don’t want to do. I can’t force a child to eat.’

Ms Tate, from the town of Howlong in New South Wales, on the Victorian border, said her breastfeeding journey got off to a rough start when her firstborn, Stuart, had tongue bands and she pumped exclusively for six months.

“I was told I wouldn’t be able to pump for that long and I said, ‘Look at me.’ For the first four to six months it was every two hours.

“I knew this was best for him. He was dairy and soy intolerant and didn’t want to drink any of the safe formulas.’

One of Ms. Tate’s goals was tandem feeding, but unfortunately, when she became pregnant with her second child Bianca 15 months later, her milk dried up.

Bianca, who is now seven, fed during her mother’s third pregnancy until the night before her baby brother Linton was born.

“I was so desperate to tandem feed her,” she said.

“The night I went into labor, I made sure she was breastfed before going to bed. I said, “I think your little brother will be here in the morning.”

“The day he was born, I asked if she still wanted milk and she said, ‘No, it’s his milk now mama.’ I was devastated, but it was her decision.’

Ms Tate said she planned to “navigate” what it would look like if Bianca still wanted breast milk when she reached school age.

“If she wanted to continue in school, it should have been before and after,” she said.

‘She didn’t go to kindy; she was the longest-fed child in preschool.’

Ms Tate said she had no qualms about feeding her children in public. “I’m not shy about eating, I’ll just pop everywhere,” she said.

She also hoped that breastfeeding in front of Stuart’s nine-year-old friends—none of whom had ever seen a baby breastfeed—would help them see that it was natural.

“A boy asked if he could give Linton a bottle and I said, ‘We don’t use a bottle,’ so I had to explain to someone else’s son how breast-feeding is done,” Ms Tate said.

Although she couldn’t fulfill her dream of tandem feeding, Ms. Tate was proud to say that she has breastfed continuously for nine years, and during that time gave milk to nine other babies.

She said she would breastfeed two-and-a-half-year-old Linton as long as he wanted, even if that was until he was nine, as her aunt’s child.

Ms Tate said any suggestion that Bianca was harmed by the prolonged breastfeeding was ludicrous.

“Bianca is fiercely independent and just as well-adjusted as her peers,” she said. “She will tell her friends, ‘I had breast milk until I was four.'”

Breastfeeding and parenting expert Pinky McKay said Australians only thought of breastfed babies, but internationally the average weaning age was between two and seven years.

“Prolonged breastfeeding may be more unusual in our culture than unnatural,” said Ms. McKay.

‘Just because we’re not used to breastfeeding a child that age doesn’t mean it’s weird. It’s a two-way relationship and you have to let the child decide.

“When women breastfeed for a long time, people think that the child is meeting the needs of the mother, but there is no way you can breastfeed a child more than they need.”

Ms McKay said the benefits of long-term breastfeeding were numerous.

“There is no expiration date on the nutrients and it really is a great calming aid,” she said. ‘It supplies hormones and oxytocin that can help regulate the toddler when they are upset or hurt.

“It’s like a superpower.”