She was happily breastfed and she's still happily breastfeeding and, you know, this doesn't seem like there's any, you know, we've talked about her stopping when she's four, on her birthday, and that's what we talk about now, all the other drinks she's going to have instead.

So this is a conscious conversation…

Yeah.

…that you and she have?

Yeah.

She's a party to this?

Yeah.

In deciding that this is what you will do?

Yeah, so come her fourth birthday we'll see what happens, I hope, that's what happens.

Are you frightened of weaning?

I'm frightened because I've tried, I've tried to wean and if I have a puff of joint or whatever then I think, 'Oh God [daughter] can't drink for another twelve hours' but [daughter's] going, “what do you mean I can't drink? I can't drink milk for another twelve hours, what are you talking about?” that's why it's difficult for me, that's why I can't say on camera that, you know, over the past three and a half years I've used anything and [daughter's] drunk my milk. Even though within the medical profession it's well-known that's what happens at birth is you, you know, if you get a mum to breastfeed then you can wean that way rather than give the baby a low, a load, a script or whatever of drugs whatever. I've also not gone back onto Prozac because I don't want her to get, you know, antidepressant's, but I'm in a dilemma because I've managed three and a half years and I'm falling apart, I need antidepressant's, you know, I need something to help me, particularly to help me, you know, stop using anything, you know, that I shouldn't use it. I mean I don't use anything bad, I have like, there's been bad ups and downs but there's been, it's been three and a half years, I've been a fucking saint compared to what I used to be, because, for the sake of [daughter]. But that's one strand, the other strand is what's going on is an eating disorder business. So you wean from milk to food, so you wean from some kind of regulated, you know, I don't know what the sort of biological, I don't know what the word is, you know, your emotional regulations and your biological and how it all knits up together to eating solid food at mealtimes or in some other environment that's regulated. And I'm finding it very difficult to get [daughter] to eat anything, and I find it very difficult for her to eat any of the healthy things I try and get her to eat. And, all I remember from my mum is her eating too much all the time, and all I remember from being three is being really fat and being fed loads of chocolate and coke by my nanny, and that being how you got looked after. And, you know, my dad's, my dad's mum died when he was five and, he's never had a sort of regular eating childhood of like, you know, that kind of regulation, that kind of like nurturing and love. And my mum obviously didn't have it because she had a problem all her life so, for some people the whole idea of like, you know, first of all I did try to get into it and during babyhood we'd do all the things like steamed vegetables and mash them up, puree fruit, do all the little finger food and stuff like that, and somehow or other she's kind of like gone through a phase of that during her babyhood and then into her toddler hood and then into her young kid hood and gone, “I don't like any of that stuff I just want the breastmilk, and plain pasta, and if you're lucky a baked potato, but apart from that I'll eat all the sweets that you, that you're used to and that you ate for your childhood” and, and I'm in complete crisis, I feel like I really need somebody to say, “You can come and stay with us for a week and we'll both, we'll look at, you know, empowering you, or self-determining how you wean or feed your daughter and yourself successfully”.

So are you getting pressure to wean from anybody else, from outside?

Well obviously, you know, it's a bit freak it, you know, people consider it very freaky, I mean I think you get these pressure points don't you? You get these, these times, specific times when everybody weighs in, and they all weigh in and they keep weighing in and then they realise they're not getting anywhere so they forget about it, and then you'll get another point and people will suddenly click and go, “Oh, two, gosh that is a, that is, you shouldn't be breastfeeding what's going on? There is a problem” and then they might get to two and a half and they go, “Now there really is a problem?” and, “let's have another go” and they weigh in and try and persuade you.

How do you deal with that? Do you not tell people that you're breastfeeding? Do you tell people that you're breastfeeding?

I don't, I well I'm sure, I'm pretty sure most people don't know, my dad knows and my dad [pause], you know, people who know me know.

So you feel as though you need help with weaning?

I need help with [pause].

And help with looking after yourself at the same time?

I need help with, giving, you know, I'm, at the moment all I'm trying do is make sure when [daughter] comes home from nursery she'll have something that is, that is food.

Nutritious.

Nutritious. And because [daughter] just refuses nearly everything apart from the doughnuts and sweets, she gets doughnuts and sweets and, subsequently she's got rotted stumps in her teeth and she's going to end up like me having a disorder around food and not knowing how to regulate with food and when I come out, I feel like I've come out of this whirlwind of the whole pregnancy, birth experience and I realise, some, some people, some Mum's relentlessly cooked and provided, put meals on the table three times a day, relentlessly for years, that's weird, what? I'm supposed to do that now am I? And it's like how the hell am I going to do that? I've just, I can just about cope, when I get my dole money I can just about cope with the next three days, you know, I'm good, but, you know, and if I see, I've seen a picture of me when I'm three, and I've looked at this picture of this person and I've thought, 'Who the hell's looking after you?' and like and then I think, then I think, 'Well, What is the narrative? What is the history? Oh yeah I was with my nanny, and what were you doing? Oh yeah you always had, as soon as you walked through the door you had, you could get, get two bars of chocolate, and you opened your cans of coke, and you just hung around and you watched telly and wait for someone to pick you up'. Then, that's what I remember about food, and you know they say that thing about the family that eats together prays, you know, the family that prays together eats together, no the family that prays together stays together.

Stays together.

The family that eats together this is what I ask some days is my dad thinks, 'The family that eats together stays together', well we don't eat together we're all over the shop. And if I, the other thing is that I started a relationship and there's a lot of smoking, like we do a lot of smoking, and you sort of like munchy out and then, you don't, you know, when you stop smoking for a few days you don't bother to eat that much, and then you only, eat loads then pig out again. And [pause] I feel like I really need to be taken in hand about organising meals. It's like, it doesn't, I don't know about that, you know, I'm trying, I'm doing it all right, it's just that it's, I'm finding it really hard and a lot of the time she'll come home and lunch will be a chocolate doughnut [pause] you know? And I'm frightened of her going, “No please let's not have chocolate doughnut, let's have some pasta and broccoli”.

Is there anything else you…

[Laughing].

…want to tell me about the breastfeeding side of things?

So then I've like, I've started a relationship and, you know, [daughter] will go to sleep in one room and we'll be in his bed, go to bed and at about six o'clock in the morning or even before that, four or five or whatever, [daughter] will come in and then from six o'clock in the morning she's breastfeeding. And it, it's a bit of a revelation to this guy and that's what [daughter] did, she's been doing that for all of her life, she always slept pretty well, she started to sleep through the nights since she was a baby.

Sleeping with you?

Yeah. And, you know, and she just, that is part of her, it's, almost feel's like she's going this is my right, how dare you even think about taking this away from me, this is my right, this is my time with you, and, you know, this is my milk I should get it whenever I like, I should get it in the day, alright I'm putting up with the fact that I get it only at night and in the morning, but I should get it in the day, I should get it whenever I want. And she doesn't, she does know that other kids aren't getting breastmilk, my dad has told her, there's loads of other people keep telling her, all the other kids her age who don't drink their mother's milk. So I don't know let's hope, I'm hoping that the four, four year old thing, is going to work that these, you know, she'll, there'll be a party, there'll be loads of other drinks there she says, and that's when she's going to stop drinking milk.

Are you able to do other things with her and distract her when she wants to have a feed during the day and you don't want her to?

Well yeah, I mean, no specific thing that we do apart from, you know, I, we've sort of got to a point where we don't in the day, and also, like because, as well if I'm, you know, if I'd had a smoke then it'll be like you're allowed a count of ten or twenty on each side, so it's like a weaning process. It does feel like she's a very conscious partner in this, and she's always been like that, and we've been through a hell of a lot together, and she's, yes, she's like, “Yeah that's fair enough, so okay I'll take twenty, count of twenty or count of ten on each side” and she's happy. Which does make me think that she's going to consciously, you know, agree to stopping.

You've obviously been able to reason with her and make some sort of a bargain?

Yeah. I suppose it does become a bribery thing sometimes as well like, you know, “There's no way you're going to have any milk if you don't clean your teeth” and that, that's all part of it as well, despite the fact they're falling out. And I heard that breast that people, mothers who breastfeed risk their baby's teeth, or their kids teeth rather than their baby's teeth because when they fall asleep on the breast their saliva stops cleaning and attacking the bacteria that's attacking the teeth. And I'm, I don't know I think maybe, well I think maybe my dad would say, “Oh, that makes sense”, you know? If her, if her teeth are all like, in a really bad way.

You're talking about breastfeeding caries, have you seen a dentist about that?

I'm not sure if the dentist or somebody has told me that, I think it might have been a dentist, it was her dentist in fact, it was her dentist who said, she asked did she drink at night? Did she have a bottle in bed? Did she breastfeed? And she said, “Oh well don't breastfeed, always” what she said, “Don't breastfeed just before they go to bed because they, the saliva can't protect their teeth”.

*Footnote: A small percentage of at-risk babies will develop dental caries in spite of breastfeeding not because of it. Good dietary and oral hygiene practices will help with prevention. A dentist should be consulted about treatment.