Rehab Addict star Nicole Curtis has defended her decision to keep breastfeeding her son after being accused of using nursing as a ploy to keep him away from his father during their custody battle.
The 41-year-old welcomed her son Harper with Shane McGuire in May 2015.
Six months later, McGuire, 54, asked for equal custody and the pair have been locked in a bitter legal battle over the issue ever since.
As part of it, she said she needed more time with Harper because he relied on her body to be fed. In response, a judge told her to use a breast pump and send her milk with the child when he was visiting his father in Minnesota
Curtis lives in Detroit, Michigan, where she also films her hit HGTV home renovation show.
Nicole Curtis is pictured breastfeeding her two-year-old son Harper who she says she will continue to nurse until he decides he is ready to stop
In an interview with People, the TV star, who is a vocal advocate for breastfeeding and attachment parenting, said she physically could not produce enough milk by pumping and that her son refused to drink it unless it came straight from her nipple.
Despite criticism from people who say Harper is too old to be nursed, she wants to leave it up to him when he will stop.
‘It’s not like he’s seven or eight. He’s still a baby. Every single day I have to weather criticism about how my child is too old to breastfeed.
‘But when he weans, it’s going to be his decision. I truly believe it’s the child’s choice,’ she said.
Reflecting on the judge’s order that she must bottle pumped milk, she said: ‘He had never had a bottle before, and then all of a sudden that was his only option while he was with his dad. I had no idea that a judge could say, “You’re court ordered to not feed your exclusively breastfed child”.
‘It’s important that children have both of their parents. But [preventing] me from breastfeeding my child just so he can see the dad is not right,’ she said.
Curtis, 41, is still trying to reach an agreement with her son’s father Shane McGuire, 54. They are pictured together during a recent weekend where he was allowed to spend time with Harper
Curtis’s pregnancy came as a shock to fans in 2015. She is pictured in April that year when she was six months pregnant
Curtis is the star of the home renovation show Rehab Addict on HGTV
In order to prove that she couldn’t expel enough milk for him, she had to sit and breast pump in front of a court appointee, she said.
Now two and still in the primary care of his mother, Harper eats other food but still reaches for Curtis’s breast to nurse.
He sleeps with his mother who told how he ‘switches between breasts’ during the night.
McGuire, a Minnesota-based businessman, had a brief relationship with the TV star before Harper’s birth
‘I don’t sleep that well,’ she said.
McGuire and Curtis had a brief relationship before Harper’s birth in November 2015. She said she was prepared to raise the baby alone but that McGuire interjected when he was six months old.
Curtis already has a 19-year-old son from a previous relationship.
For the past two years, she and McGuire have struggled to reach an agreement.
The businessman has recently bought a home in Detroit in order to spend more time with him and they occasionally share weekends.
Curtis’s pregnancy and Harper’s birth in 2015 came as a surprise to fans. She did little to quell their curiosity and refused to share details of how Harper was born or who his father was for months.
Their custody battle has included messy middle-of-the night fights including one, in 2016, during which Curtis allegedly ‘dragged’ Harper away from her father and back to her home.
In a separate legal saga, her own mother tried to win a restraining order against her, citing ‘fits of rage’ and ‘her hatred’ of her.
A judge did not initially grant the request due to lack of evidence.
Curtis also fought for custody of her oldest son, Ethan, now 19.
His father missed his birth because he was serving jail time for a DUI manslaughter charge.
When he was four, Curtis filed for full custody but Ethan’s father Steven Cimini, fought her. At one stage, they were so acrimonious they had to meet up at a police station to exchange him.