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26-year-old mother-of-two Lee Moffitt loves breastfeeding her children.
Her love for breastfeeding came about when she was a child and her own mother breastfed her until she was five years old. Since Moffitt had her first daughter, Rose, she immediately understood why her mother had made the choices she did and agreed – it felt like the “most natural way of nurturing children.”
Rose is now eight years old and Moffitt said, “I left it up to Rose, to decide when she wanted to stop [breastfeeding].”
Moffitt’s daughter ultimately stopped breastfeeding when she was about six years old, the time their adult teeth have begun to grow in. Because of this natural progression, Moffitt imagined that six years old was the “natural cut off age” to stop breastfeeding.
In her perspective, the World Health Organization’s suggestion of weaning children off breastfeeding when they’re just two is merely “an average.”
Moffitt, however, isn’t just cavalier about breastfeeding her own children.
She’s also in the practice of breastfeeding other mother’s children.
Moffitt often works as a nanny and babysitter for other parents in the area. One time, when someone’s son was being particularly fussy, Moffitt called up the mother and asked if it was okay for her to breastfeed him.
The mother had absolutely no problem with it and Moffitt discovered that by breastfeeding the young boy, he went to sleep much more easily.
Since then, Moffitt has made a point of advertising herself as a “breastfeeding wet nurse” online and to other mothers in the area who seek babysitting help. Because “wet nursing is a normal thing in some other countries,” Moffitt believes that it could be a practice adopted everywhere for the benefit of mothers and their children.
Unfortunately, Moffitt receives a lot of backlash online from people calling her “gross, weird, disgusting, and sick” for making the choices she does about breastfeeding.
Moffitt understands that there are particular diseases and bacteria that can be transferred through breastfeeding – which is why she always checks with mothers before she feeds a new child – but she also thinks that too many people view breastfeeding as a “sexual” act.
Moffitt’s stance against her criticizers is this: “Being a wet nurse creates an amazing bond with children and helps with the primal bond you have with other women, allowing you to share in motherhood.”
