A mother-of-three has spoken out and defended her actions after people accused her of harming her children by breastfeeding them.
Temeaka Tate from Australia has sparked a divisive debate on Facebook after sharing photos showing her breastfeeding her 4-year-old daughter.
As the mother insisted, breastfeeding is natural which is why she will continue doing it as long as her children desire it even if they’re already nine years old.
Her actions, however, were met with criticism on Facebook where viewers reported her for “child harm” and threatened to call the police on her.
“I was proud I’d gone from not being able to breastfeed to breastfeeding exclusively, so I took a lot of photos,” the mom admitted in an interview with Daily Mail Australia. “They all got reported as child harm.”
Hitting back at her critics, she added: “It’s not their bodies or relationship to comment on. No one was forced.
“I ask people if they’ve ever tried to make a toddler do what they don’t want to do. I can’t force a child to feed.”
According to Tate, her breastfeeding journey is a rocky one, whereas she previously struggled to get her supply going and produce enough milk for her children.
While it was also one of her goals to tandem feed her children, the mom’s milk dried up when she fell pregnant with her third child.
After the boy was born, the mom’s daughter, who is now 7, allegedly refused to get back to breastfeeding saying the milk now belonged to her brother.
“I was heartbroken, but it was her decision,” Temeaka recalled.
“If she wanted to keep going while at school, it would have had to be before and after. She didn’t go to kindy; she was the longest-fed child at playgroup.”
The mother further claimed she doesn’t feel shy to breastfeed her kids anywhere at any time, saying she even does it in front of her son’s 9-year-old friends to raise awareness about it
“One boy asked if he could give my son a bottle and I said, ‘We don’t use a bottle,’ so I had to explain breastfeeding to someone else’s son,” she added.
Tate also lashed back at her haters saying breastfeeding her daughter until the age of four and a half didn’t in any way impact her or the child negatively.
“She is fiercely independent and just as well as adjusted as her peers. She will say to her friends, ‘I had mum milk until I was four,’” the mom-of-three insists.
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