Woman hosts celebration to mark the end of her son breastfeeding

An Australian woman has hosted a “bye bye boobie” party to celebrate the end of her son breastfeeding.

An Australian woman has hosted a “bye bye boobie” party to celebrate the end of her seven-year-old son breastfeeding.

Lauren McLeod, 31, breastfed her eldest child Bowie until he was 6 and shared how the pair celebrated the end of a “special time” in their lives.

The mother-of-two made her son a “bye bye boobie” brownie to commemorate the end of the breastfeeding journey.

Lauren McLeod, 29, had her first child, Bowie, in August 2017 and hoped she would breastfeed him until the age of two – as her mum did with her. Picture: SWNS

“We both knew this day was coming and we were ready, but it was still really sad for us both to say goodbye to such a special time in our lives,” she said as she presented him with the brownie cake.

At bed time, the pair talked about their favourite breastfeeding memories while Bowie had his last feed ever.

When Lauren fell pregnant with her second child, Tiger Lily, now 4, she said she had an “open mind” about how her breastfeeding journey would continue.

“My milk did dry up at around 15 weeks pregnant but he just kept feeding like nothing had changed,” she said.

Initially, she had planned to ween him at the age of two and assumed he would self ween but he never did.

But when Bowie turned two, he showed no signs of wanting to give up breastfeeding so the mum continued – even after she had her daughter, Tiger Lily, now four, in May 2020. Picture: SWNS

“When I had Bowie I had no idea that I would still be breastfeeding him at the age of five — not that there was anything wrong with it, I just never imagined myself doing that,” she said.

“But here we are and it’s fine and it’s working for us. I don’t know how much longer we’ll be going for but we’ll just see what happens.”

She never considered bottle feeding her child, not because she had anything against it, but breastfeeding just worked for her family.

“There have absolutely been moments where the kids have been older where I’ve thought, ‘Oh my god, I just can’t do this anymore. I need to stop’,” she said.

“But that’s just on a bad day. I’m happy with our journey and open to it changing whenever it needs to change.”

She shared how she celebrated the end of his breastfeeding journey. Picture: SWNS

Lauren has documented her family’s breastfeeding journey online in a big to help normalise breastfeeding past infancy, adding that Western society has made mothers feel like they are doing some wrong for continuing this act.

She added that she also does it to help educate parents on tandem feeding as she often gets a lot of messages about how it works.

Lauren said she usually gets supportive messages and has never had negative comments in person but gets comments online labelling breastfeeding past infancy as “gross”, “disgusting” and “perverted”.

She said breasts can absolutely be sexual, but breastfeeding and sexualising breasts are two completely separate things