couples

Help! Is it normal that... my sister wants to breastfeed my child?

This mum has fallen out with her sister about the most intimate thing we can imagine. Does the ivillage brains trust have any answers?

My big sister and I are really close, we always have been. We live really near to each other in a small town and throughout all our lives we’ve leaned on each other for everything.

But we’re really different. She’s ‘out there’ and into lots of alternative ideas and therapies. She’s always happy for her opinion to be known on any issue. I don’t have a problem with any of her philosophies, but naturally I’m a quieter, probably more conventional sort of a person. But I love her to bits.

My first baby is three months old, and her second child is eight months. We’re both breastfeeding, we’re both pretty passionate about breastfeeding. But here’s the thing – last week I left my son with her for an hour while I went to the bank with my husband to talk about a loan. It was the first time I’d ever left him, and I wasn’t worried about it because my sister is an amazing mum and loves him like her own.

But when I got back, she was literally just about to breastfeed him, we walked into her house and she was lifting him up to her. She said he’d been crying, she thought he must be hungry (he wasn’t, I fed him before I left) and that it was the best thing to do. To say we had a big fight about is an understatement, I think the whole town could hear us!

My sister does not understand why I was so upset about this. But I feel that her breastfeeding my boy is wrong, and the whole idea disgusts me. She says she would do it again to stop my baby crying in a heartbeat. Now we’re not talking and it’s making me miserable. She is not the type to back down. Of course I can just not ever leave my baby there again, but it’s going to cause so many problems between us. I don’t know how we can ever get past it.

Am I overreacting? My husband thinks it’s gross but that I’m getting too upset about it.

Is it okay to breastfeed a relative’s child? How can this mum sort this issue out with her sister?