Background- Breastfeeding and good nutrition for children are essential for achieving thernMillennium Development Goals, particularly the goals relating to child survival. Even thoughrnmost mothers in Ethiopia breastfeed their babies, they do not always follow thernrecommendations of the "National Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding,". Mothers dornnot initiate breastfeeding within one hour after delivery, majority of them provide pre-lactealrnfeed and they do not exclusively breast feed to six months. Although the implementation of thernnational infant and young child feeding guideline has been in place since 2004, there is limitedrnstudy which evaluated breastfeeding practices in the study area in this regard.rnObjective- The aim of this study was to assess determinants of breast feeding practice amongrnmothersâ€™ of children aged less than 24 months attending governmental maternal and child healthrnclinics in Mekelle town.rnMethods- Institution based cross sectional study was carried out among five health facilitiesrnselected using simple random sampling technique. Data was collected by interviewerrnadministered structured questionnaire and it was entered, cleaned and analyzed by using SPSSrnfor windows version 16.0. Proportion was used to describe the results and it was presented in thernform of figures, tables and texts. Binary logistic regression model was used to test associationrnbetween dependent and independent variables.rnResult- A total of 361 mothers with their index child were interviewed. The ever breastfeedingrnrate in this study was 98.9%. The timely initiation rate of breastfeeding and exclusivernbreastfeeding were 77.9% and 60.8%, respectively. Eighty five percent of mothers reported onrndemand breastfeeding. The continued breast feeding rate at one year and at two years was 95.7%rnand 65.6% respectively. Home delivery (AOR=3.7[95%CI= 1.81, 9.33]), Vaginal deliveryrn(AOR=14.4[95%CI=4.8, 43.7])rnandrnnonrnhealthrnprofessionalrnasrnarnbirthrnattendantrn(AOR=3.5[95%CI=1.21, 8.53]) were found to be positively statistically associated with timelyrninitiation of breastfeeding (P