Rumer Willis has responded to critics of her choosing to breastfeed her two-year-old daughter.
On Thursday, the 37-year-old actor posted a photo of herself on her Instagram Story of her lying down on a couch while nursing her toddler, Louetta, who has the nickname “Lou.”
“For the haters who come at me about breastfeeding my 2 yr old,” she wrote on top of the photo. “I hope you have a blessed day.”
This is not the first time Rumer has addressed breastfeeding on social media. In 2023, she responded to commenters asking why she posted photos of her nursing on Instagram, replying: “Cause I want to.”
Another follower accused Willis of sharing the photo “for attention,” arguing that “nursing a baby is very private and should not be displayed like a circus event.” Willis responded saying that breastfeeding her daughter was a “privilege” and said the critic’s remarks reflected “a limited view” of motherhood.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization recommend that infants be exclusively breastfed for about the first six months of their lives, while starting to introduce other foods into the child’s diet, and continuing breastfeeding until they are two years old or older. Mothers often begin to wean their child off of breastmilk between the ages of two and four.
Rumer is the eldest daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. The former couple also shares Scout LaRue Willis, 34, and Tallulah Belle Willis, 31. Following their divorce, the Die Hard actor married Emma Heming Willis in 2009, where they went on to welcome two more daughters, Mabel Ray Willis, 13, and Evelyn Penn Willis, 11.
Rumer has previously opened up about how close her blended family is, and how she hopes she and Lou — whom she shares with her ex-boyfriend singer Derek Richard Thomas — can one day be the same way.
“Honestly, I hope Lou will, like, still sleep in bed with me when she’s my age,” she said during an episode of Zoe Winkler’s What in the Winkler?! podcast in April. “I still sleep in bed with my mom, and I don’t think it’s weird.”
She added that she and her sisters also bathe together.
“We all still take baths together, my sisters and I. And that’s just the kind of house that I grew up in,” she explained, adding: “People might think that that’s crazy and weird, but I don’t.”
During the conversation, Winkler and Rumer were discussing their different approaches to sleep-training her children, prompting Willis to share that she prefers sleeping with her toddler in the same room.
“I co-sleep with Louetta and have not spent a night away for her since she was born,” she said, adding, “I always think about it as, imagine if you took a baby gorilla or a dog when it was two weeks old or three months old, and had it sleep in a different room than [its] mom. Everyone would look at you like you were crazy. But yet we’re like, ‘Oh no, that kid can sleep through the night. It’s got to fend for themselves, got to learn how to self-soothe.’ They can’t even feed themselves!”
