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Mom slams critics who called her 'inappropriate' for breastfeeding her 4-year-old
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A South African influencer has faced backlash online for her decision to continue breastfeeding her four-year-old.
Shinnai Visser, known to her followers as @mindful_mamma_za, shares content about her holistic parenting and extended breastfeeding journey.
The intimate content shared by the 34-year-old, including her two home births and experience homeschooling, is well received by most of her 61.3k followers but others have heavily criticized some of her controversial parenting techniques.
Social media users have labelled her decision to continue breastfeeding her children beyond the average age as “inappropriate”and “unhealthy” because it “creates too much dependence”.
Why has she continued nursing into early childhood?
However the mum-of-two claims that her decision to nurse her children, aged four and 20 months, into early childhood is deeply rooted in the research that contradicted what she thought was “normal in western culture”.
In a caption on TikTok, Shinnai said: “Anthropological research shows the natural weaning age for humans is anywhere between 2.5 and 7 years.
“In many cultures around the world, breastfeeding well into early childhood is normal, expected, and supported.”
Shinnai told People magazine: “When I learned that humans historically breastfed far longer than we do today, it reframed the idea that extended breastfeeding is unusual.
“It’s not biologically strange — it’s culturally unfamiliar."
She explains that her findings have shaped the way she feeds her children. Her eldest, four, is the one that decides when she wants to feed and at the moment “it’s very minimal and very intentional”, sometimes she goes a few days without breastfeeding.
Her youngest, who is approaching two, “feeds countless times throughout the day… and she still nurses a few times during the night”.
Often frowned upon once children begin eating solid foods, for Shinnai nursing is less about nourishment and more about emotional development.
“Breastfeeding is less about nutrition and more about co-regulation."
It “offers a familiar, calming sensory experience that helps regulate their nervous system” she says.
When will she stop breastfeeding?
Unsurprisingly the parenting influencer is asked all the time about when she plans to stop nursing.
Addressing the inevitable questions she simply says she will continue as long as it feels “mutually right” for her and her children.
Despite the criticism she faces online, Shinnai remains an advocate for breastfeeding into early childhood, encouraging other mothers to do the same.