Extended Breastfeeding

My baby is almost a year old. Soon she will cross the invisible dividing line between “infant” and “toddler.”
I sat nursing her, stroking her still-soft head yesterday and wondered how I could ever have imagined that a baby would be ready to stop breast-feeding by a year. 

When I was pregnant with my first child, I knew I would breast feed. Why not? My mom had breastfed most of her children, so I grew up thinking it was normal. But my mom also believed, along with a great deal of the United States, that “they don’t need to nurse once they can eat” and “if they can ask for it, they need to wean.” So I assumed that is how breast feeding was done.
But when my first child grew closer and closer to a year old, I realized it was hard to tell when she had begun asking to nurse. Was it when at 5 months old she could pluck at my shirt? Or was it at 3 months old, when she cried to let me know that other comfort measures weren’t working and she wanted to nurse? Or did it begin at 9 months old when she could try to lift my shirt to find her beloved nursies? So, I just kept nursing her. 

There is plenty of evidence out there that extended breastfeeding is beneficial to both mother and toddler. The World Health Organization has recommended breastfeeding for “up to two years of age or beyond.” UNICEF states to “continue to breastfeed for two years or more with age appropriate, responsive complementary feeding." The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends “”that breastfeeding continue for at least 12 months, and thereafter for as long as mutually desired.”
Some studies have even shown that children breastfed past infancy have fewer incidences of diabetes; have more normal jaw formation, eliminating perhaps a need for braces; are less prone to viral illnesses; and that these breastfed children have a healthy self-image and are socially well-adjusted. Other studies indicate a benefit to moms too, including a lower risk of breast cancer.