************ Durham 2010 part 2

[StealthPolarBear]

indith had the 1001st post asking SLF how today went.

Hope you are home by now! think the traffic was awful. Hope it went well

[juneybean]

Oh dear... lol

Tuesday 21st September

10.30am - Cafe Continental

[juneybean]

Dare I start on the C word.... what shall we do about the Christmas meet up?

Are we aiming for a Durham meet up, or a great north east meet up?

[LeggyBlondeNE]

Well you're in the excellent company of Tescos if you do... ;-)

[Chocaholica]

Leggy, great news about the weight.

I read your post earlier in breast and bottle feeding about the syringe feeding. We are often at home in the afternoons and you would be welcome whenever to bring T round and I'm a dab hand with a syringe (okay just with Calpol but there you go) and always have cake.

I can't make tomorrow (busy in the morning) - I never seem to make it! Probs best though as DD1 wouldn't sit still for long even if cake were offered. Not her mummy's girl....

Where is Betty, or Purple Dove, or whatever she now calls herself?

[EasilyConfusedIndith]

oOOOPS, well noticed SPB.

See you tomorrow!

[FrozenNorth]

Ugh, I can't come because I have to make myself work. But I want cake, so will eat one at my desk and be with you all in spirit. Mind you, the last Cafe Continental trip was lovely but didn't do much for my blood pressure (it all started to go a bit wrong when DD1 dropped her apple juice) :)

[juneybean]

Awww no :( I hope I can meet you soon!

[Chocaholica]

Frozen, I think babies and cake are a more peaceful combo than toddlers and cake.... specially pre-weaning babies....

[EasilyConfusedIndith]

I think we had pretty good evidence of that this morning!

I was very impressed at how good they all were actually. I can't believe we managed an hour before it started kicking off!

[FrozenNorth]

Juney - me too! :)
Chocaholica - I completely agree. Went to a cafe with my two yesterday as had pm off, and bumped into 2 friends without children. About 15 mins in - just after DD2 had snatched her bowl of sweet potato and dumped it on the floor, and DD1 had successfully adorned her face with latte foam in the manner of camouflage paint - one friend said "you know, I was beginning to think that now might be the right time for children. But it's definitely not".

Anyhow, hope you all enjoyed a lovely meet-up and neither of the things described above happened to you ...

[FrozenNorth]

Ah, x-post with Indith. Well yes, an hour is pretty impressive :)

[spiggy]

some people from Newcastle/Sunderland have started a thread here [[
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/meetups/999699-Newcastle-and-Tyneside]]

I've sort of invaded it and suggested a Great North meet up in their patch Butterpie was on there already.

[KaraStarbuckThrace]

Here you are!

Yes Juney I suppose we could start up a Christmas meet up!

We do need to organise to next night out though.

[FrozenNorth]

Argh. Spent 15 minutes trying to find my car in Arnison Centre car park, then came home to find out that all the new students are moving back in on our road. No more lovely peace and quiet

[LeggyBlondeNE]

They're early...!

[Chocaholica]

Is it student time already? It was in Newcastle today, but I thought Durham students came back later.

How's it going, Leggy?

I have been in John Lewis in Newcastle a couple of times recently, because DD1 likes playing in the toy area, the nappy change/parent toilet is convenient, and the espresso bar is a good feeding space IMO. Anyway I had a surreal experience in JL once when feeding DD1 in the breastfeeding room when a man sitting in there spooning puree into his toddler's mouth voiced an objection to me being in there breastfeeding. The other day I was in the nappy change area, which is connected to the breastfeeding room by a curtain. I was changing DD2's nappy. The curtain was closed and there were voices behind it. DD2 started making the sucky noises that mean 'Milk soon please?' so I said to her 'you can have your milk once you've got a nice clean nappy' (I know she doesnt understand but I say these things anyway). At this point the curtain to the feeding area was opened and a woman appeared saying 'you can't come in here yet, my daughter is feeding her baby' so I said 'it's okay, I'm going to feed her in the espresso bar' and she looked absolutely horrified and then said 'oh you're bottle-feeding' and I said no, breastfeeding, and she still looked shocked but retreated behind the curtain. Then another mum, friend and pram entered the nappy change area and headed for the curtained area, opening the curtain, whereupon the woman said anxiously 'you can't come in here, my daughter's feeding her baby' again. The mum said to her friend 'where can we go? shall I go into the toilet? I could feed him on the toilet' and was all panicked. I was poised to suggest the espresso bar but thought it would be cheeky. I don't know where they decided because I left at this point, DD2 having begun to increase her volume, and headed for the espresso bar, ordered hot choc and cake, sat down, they brought my order over and I started to feed. Saw two sets of bottle-feeding mums and babes in there looking very relaxed. Thought - what is this culture where women are so worried about feeding in public that they even don't want other breastfeeding mothers to see them feeding. And how hard it is to continue to feed if you need to hide. I guessed the baby behind the curtain must have been very young (cos that's usually when feeding in public is most intimidating) but in fact she wasn't, because I bumped into them again and baby looked around 4-5 months. That mother had done brilliantly to feed that long while being so intimidated by being seen.

Sorry for long post. I'm not criticizing anyone here. I'm just musing on how breastfeeding in public, in this area, still seems to be seen as odd, even though actually I have never had anyone say anything or even look oddly at me. I suppose it's all about perception. But the hiding away does make it harder, and less convenient (though maybe is cheaper and less calorific!).

[Chocaholica]

Sorry for such an epic post!

[FrozenNorth]

Hmm, I wonder whether the privacy-conscious individual in that case was the woman you met or the breastfeeder herself. Sad, though, isn't it? I have a lovely friend (a teacher) who is due to give birth to her second child any day now. She was talking about breastfeeding this next one (her DS was ff) and saying how uncomfortable her DH was about the idea of her having to absent herself to feed the newborn instead of being 'polite' when family and friends came around to visit. I decided not to suggest that she not leave the room (friend is rather aghast at me whipping out a breast in front of all and sundry) and asked instead whether her DH knew much about the benefits of breastfeeding. She replied that she wasn't sure, and didn't know much about the benefits of it herself although she knew it was something she should do. So I showed her a couple of paragraphs from the WHO model chapter on infant feeding that a mumsnetter recommended to me, describing the evidence behind the recommendation to bf. She read them and, looking rather horrified, said "you mean formula is made from cows milk?" I hope that she managed to talk to her DH about feeding and maybe even get him to think about prioritising the bf relationship above that of the in-laws. I was left feeling really forlorn and hopeless about people ever getting accurate and evidence-based information about feeding because unless you're of a certain mindset, it's just not something you go looking for. I know what's likely to stick in a person's mind above and beyond the bland "breast is best!" posters in the health centre waiting room- and that's the lovely, tinkly reassuring music of the Aptamil commercial.

I wish a millionaire somewhere would fund a big ad campaign for breastfeeding.

Must join Chocoholica in apologising for long post. All of the above is intended to say that I agree with what you're saying about obstacles to bfing relationships around here...

[KaraStarbuckThrace]

Chocaholica, FrozenNorth, those are great posts!

One alternative for the incident in JL, Choc, is her baby maybe at the funny stage where they are very easily distracted, and keep whipping off the boob flashing everyone :D DS went through this stage. I still fed in public but tried to minimise it as much of possible!

Though I can't help but feel that she couldn't have fed in front of another bfing mum. Perhaps she doesn't know any?

I used bfing rooms for the first week - I remember using the room in the Metro centre and sharing it with another mum who's little one was a few weeks older than my 6do ds. And we were quite happily chatting and she was reassuring me it would get easier :)

But I think it helped my DH was very supportive of my bfing, I had seen a few bfing mums at a Bumps and Babies group that I went to a few weeks before I had baby.


And on a related subject - I went to a meeting on Friday with our local Breastfeeding Co-ordinator and I now have my ID badge and have signed up to help out as a peer supporter at my local Surestart centre on a Friday morning - they have both a antenatal and a postnatal clinic then.

[Chocaholica]

Kara, that's great. You'll be fantastic at that and having supporters does make a difference.

Frozen, your post has prompted me to wonder what people think formula is. The name - formula - implies something scientifically invented and approved, which culturally is bound to seem more legitimate and powerful than a woman's body. Been wondering if maybe part of all this is a fundamental distrust in the female body, or disgust at it, as opposed to 'science'. Might be better to call formula 'modified cows breastmilk'.

I used breastfeeding rooms with DD1 initially and again from time to time. But I liked meeting other feeders in the room (chatterbox emoticon needed here). When I was particularly scared I used to sort of plonk the pram in front of me. I am just bewildered because I used to see lots of women feeding in cafes and now I rarely do.

I am not at all anti formula by the way. I know it is sometimes necessary. I think when I had DD1 it never occurred to me, though, how politicised infant feeding necessarily is. And then I read The Politics of Breastfeeding when DD2 was born....

[KaraStarbuckThrace]

Chocaholic - yes I quite agree with you about the name "formula". And it is amazing how people don't realise what it is made from - really shows you the power of marketing.
I think it is for similar reasons that births became overly medicalised in the last century - because of people's perceptions that Doctors new best :(

[Indith]

That's great Kara :)

I do dind it so sad that people feel they cannot feed in public. I know that hooter hiders and the like get ripped to shreds on here but they can help. Leggy and Frozen who were at the botanics when my friends were there may have noticed one of them using a nursing cover. She fed without it when it was quiet or just good friends but any more public situation she used a cover.

It is indeed student time again. I've noticed a lot of them around wearing sports kit for pre-season training recently. This weekend all the AA signs for the colleges were up, there wasn't enough traffic for it to be freshers yet so I assume the freshers will be next weekend. REmind me not to go anywhere near town next weekend! Argh, I know I was one not all that long ago but the first few weeks of term annoy the hell out of me. Freshers going everywhere as a corridor and returning students gathering in huge groups, usually composed of rahs, air kissing and twittering away about all the turtles they saved in the bahamas and, like, oh my god, it was just so awesome Tilly. Then is you ask them to shift over so you can actually get through they look at you as though you are some imposter in their fine city. What? You mean people live here?

[KaraStarbuckThrace]

It's going to be quite challenging I think as the area the SureStart centre is closest to is a sink estate where bfing rates are very low

I was at Stay and Play there last Wednesday and I did see at least one mum bfing, and I think there were a couple of others - however my instincts tell me that these mums were from Ingleby Barwick - very affluent with high bfing rates. They have SS centres in IB but they don't seem to have as much on so some of these mums (a lot of them are NCT mums too) come to Thornaby where there is a lot more on. And tbh I think it is good as they are all very nice - and they keep the groups running.

Right I need to work now!!

[juneybean]

I think you're right in that they've probably not seen another woman breastfeed and so they think it's the norm to hide away to feed.

When I think back to when my friend had her little girl 4 years ago before I had met any of you she used to leave the room to feed her and you begin to think it's the norm.

It isn't until I've met you all that I can see it's nothing to be afraid of and I am more likely to breastfeed now, although I may be leaning on you all for advice

Although on another hand I was intending to breastfeed because my mum had, and I think you're more likely to if your mum had? I'm not sure, it's something I wrote about for health promotion as part of my child care certificate but I can't remember what I wrote

[KaraStarbuckThrace]

'I am more likely to breastfeed now'

Ooh are you expecting

Yes you are much more likely to breastfeed if your mum did - this is well documented. This is why a lot of mums who were themselves bottle fed don't breastfeed - pressure from their mums who erroneously believe that formula is just as good because their children turned out okay. Plus they just don't want to be seen to be critcising their mum's choices. Though the chances are they weren't given a choice