Why I breast-feed my toddler

Time magazine shows the cover of the May 21, 2012 issue with a photograph of Jamie Lynne Grumet, 26, breastfeeding her 3-year-old son for a story on "attachment parenting."

How old is too old? Katie Hamilton says mothers should decide how long they want to breast-feed their children, not society.

One is an arbitrary number, she says, in response to a controversial Time magazine cover this week depicting a woman breast-feeding her 3-year-old son.

"There has been this bond, this connection and to cut it off right at 1, there's no need for it," said Hamilton, a mother of two in Redondo Beach, Calif. She breast-feeds her 21-month-old daughter and explains why in an AP video. (See video here: http://apne.ws/KWHX9c )

Hamilton says she loves that the magazine cover has put breast-feeding and attachment parenting in the news. The attachment philosophy encourages mothers to respond to their babies' every cry and form close bonds with near-constant physical contact through "co-sleeping" (letting them sleep in the bed with parents rather than in cribs) and "baby-wearing" (carrying them on slings instead of pushing them in strollers).

"It's about mothers doing the best they can to meet the needs of their baby and follow their natural instincts in the biological norm that keeps their baby healthy and happy," she tells AP.

News by AP

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