For so many little kids, breastfeeding is just something that mummies do.
So when two-year-old Charlotte decided her 'baby' was hungry, she did what any mum would do: lifted her shirt to breastfeed.
Her mum took a photo of the caring moment, then posted it to the Facebook with the caption, "You know you're a breastfeeding mother when you look over in the middle of the store to your toddler saying, 'Baby cry, baby just wants to eat' ..."
All lovely and healthy, right? Not according to one stranger, who reposted the image with a horrible comment.
"I just saw some of the nastiest s*** of my life!!" the stranger wrote. "If you're okay with your daughter lifting up her shirt and putting her baby dolls mouth to her little 'dots' pretending to breastfeed then I personally think you need punched in the d*** face!!! It's just simply not okay!!! Arguments welcome. I'm willing to shut y'all down today."
The post made its way back to the mum of two, who has chosen to go anonymous. She was understandably left shocked and upset by the comments.
"The breastfeeding shaming starts before they even start really breastfeeding!" she wrote, exasperated.
She explained that she is breastfeeding Charlotte but formula-fed her five-year-old son as a baby.
"I am open to both, both are equally wonderful," she wrote. "I would love to know how it is 'the nastiest shit of [that commenter's] life'.
"Breastfeeding is something that is natural and is normal. A baby putting a bottle to its dolls mouth, they are feeding their baby doll, correct? There's no difference.
"I do not feel the need to correct Charlotte because breastfeeding is wrong? She said her baby wanted to eat, so she fed her. Charlotte says she wants to eat, in public or not, I nurse."
The experience left the mum wondering if she was in the wrong as she wrote, "I was just so taken back. I then questioned am I wrong? How can I or why should I tell her this is wrong when it is what she knows?"
But the mum has since been supported by hundreds of women, many of whom posted photos of their own young children – both boys and girls – 'breastfeeding' their dolls.
"My son has invisible babies. They fall from the ceiling. And when they are hungry, he puts them in his shirt to feed them. He's 3. I would never tell him he's disgusting or wrong. It's friggin adorable and imaginative and exactly the mind set he needs to one day be an amazing daddy, just like his daddy," one wrote.
"Oh no a child knows exactly what breast are meant for? What kind of world are we living in?!?!?! I think its great kids else grow up not sexualizing the breasts, they are meant for food!"
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