BF and older child...it's not for you and that's fine. It's really not for a lot of people. Let's face it...it's not a social norm here. As long as you leave those who do it alone then that's all that matters. My 3½ year old just recently weaned. I actually got more crap when she was younger because she had a feeding tube placed (still has one) and there was "now no reason to breastfeed". That made no sense to me since it was sometimes all you could get into her orally. Her GI actually asked me at one point to NOT wean because of her issues. She was at least 14-18 months of age when he brought that up. And in fairness my 3½ year old can't ride a bike, can't cut her own and food and even has a very hard time walking up stairs.
Despite all that I still would have nursed her as long as I did. But it is something very weird for this society. It's not a social norm and this country is really all about social norms. In a sociology class we had a project where we were to break a social norm in public and had to document the results. A friend of mine went into an elevator and pretended he operated the thing and made really odd comments. I forget what the other things were but it was hysterical. I went to the mall and was going to ask people for bites of their food from the food court...people sitting and eating. I never got that far because I had to nurse my daughter and next thing I know there's some man who I realize is walking past over and over and over again and there was a woman with a mean look on her face as she watched me. I needed to get home to return a phone call so we skipped the food court and considered the project done.
Co-sleeping...been doing that since the beginning and I have 4 children and there was 1 ectopic. So we were finding that time
. We personally have never had a hard time getting a child out of bed. Right now I have a 3½ year old in bed. She tells us she wants her own bed. There are 2 problems with that...we need to order on and she is fed at night with a pump (like an IV pump). She has on 2 occasions that I can think of had it wrapped tight around her neck and it's not uncommon for a port to open and feed the bed rather then her. So for me right now it's so much easier to have her in bed. When we get back from Disney she will be getting her new bed and moving. I may sleep on the trundle the first couple of nights. So there are ways to have another baby without the bed. And I do know people who had a hard time getting kids out of the bed...we didn't. For us it was really easy.
We all have to accept that there are social norms. The problem is when a norm is broken how people react. Some people react well and others not so well. At the same time we forget that our social norms aren't always right, aren't always the best thing, sometimes they are the greatest thing. It all comes down to the reaction after seeing a norm broken.
Man I wish I could remember what other people did for their projects...some were really original and down right hysterical.