Which was a bit of a problem – for him. (Personally, and generalising, I find men’s fixations with particular parts of women’s anatomy faintly amusing and a little pathetic. I mean, we rarely talk about another woman as being “a bit of a shoulders girl” or “an arse woman”, do we?)

My son’s father had long been under the (mistaken) impression that my breasts were “his”. After the early fascination and pride at the incredible creation of nature which was our son, he began to exhibit all the classic signs of jealousy I had read about in countless books and website forums. And you know what? I was too tired to give a damn. I was not tap-dancing around his bruised ego. I was barely maintaining a grip on my own fragile sense of self.

In some vague fashion, I had the idea that the wee man and I would have this breastfeeding relationship for a year or two, until his interest in solid foods superceded his interest in my milk. His early indifference to food should have given me a clue to the future – I used to joke half-heartedly that food was only a hobby for him, when 12 months went by with only a token effort at gnawing on interesting food stuffs. (After all, he certainly had the teeth for the whole business – first ones through at 3 months, and the full set of gnashers in place by 14 months. Ask my nipples – they are intimately acquainted.)

Yes, the wee man had different ideas, and our breastfeeding relationship continued right up until this Christmas, when he was over 3 ½ years old. At about 2 ½ years, I began to have the first nigglings of discontent. Apart from the mystical image of a complete night’s sleep, I was coming to realise how limiting was his dependence on the nightly booby fix to get to sleep; having him lift up my shirt in the shopping centre, or in the midst of a conversation with friends, was occasionally challenging. I began to realise, too, that I would like to reclaim the rights to my own body, which had become the prize in what amounted to a tug-of-love, with no-one else acknowledging my prior claim.

And yet – I was determined to continue until the wee man was ready. Without making a conscious choice, or even being aware that there was a name for it, I had found myself practising a style of parenting called Attachment Parenting, driven by choices which seemed instinctive to me. Co-sleeping seemed a natural evolution of the breastfeeding relationship, and allowed me many precious extra hours sleep; feeding on demand made sense with the incredible diversity of needs of my growing baby. Comforting and carrying close instead of allowing him to cry-it-out spoke to my own heart. Continuing the breastfeeding until he had no more need of it was simply an extension of these practices.

So it was with considerable relief that, after reducing our frequency of feeds down to bedtime and waking after he started preschool last year, we finally said goodbye to “teta” at my mum’s on Christmas Eve – spontaneously. And just like that, Dad could finally put him to bed, and I could do other things with the evenings and the mornings. And within the same transition, he was ready to move into his own bed. No tears, no fears, no regression.

Have I given you the impression I didn’t like breastfeeding? On the contrary, I loved it. So many incredible moments of contemplative joy, gazing at the face of my precious little man; so many shared glances, private moments, milk-filled smiles; opportunities to relax and enjoy the sight, the smell, the weight of him; to rest together instead of feeling compelled by every little thing that needed doing. The victorious thrill that my body, my breasts, had been able to do it, to sustain and nourish my boy, to nurture and inoculate him against the big bad world. “My best science experiment ever”, I used to croon, as I watched him suck greedily, mother’s milk performing the amazing alchemy which makes it whatever your child needs in the moment: food, drink, potent anti-bacterial, immune-booster, soporific, euphoric.

Am I glad to have my breasts back? Yes – though they will never be the same shape and texture they once were, they have done great things. I am happy to have regained the rights to my own body, and a measure of personal privacy that has been missing for some time.

Would I make the same choices, if I could do it all again? Absolutely.