Etiquette using breast milk in baby food as a guest?

[Humdrumdum]

We're going to stay with family and I use breast milk in breakfast for our baby, usually scrambled eggs or porridge in a pan to make sure the extra nutrients being missed are chucked in.

They're fine with us cooking for ourselves but would it be weird if I did it there with their pan and bowls or am I overthinking it?

I think it’s fine and personally I wouldn’t care one bit.

But it’s unnecessary anyway. If you want nutrients, just feed your baby breast milk. It won’t matter if they miss it for 2 days on holiday In meals, and the heat probably doesn’t do much good for it anyway. I personally couldn’t be asked with faffing about with cooking at someone else’s.

I read this as 'I wouldn't eat an eyelid'. I think it might be time for bed...

I do too. Surely milk is milk.

I can see opinions are very split. I asked because I'm not sure how I'd feel about it either. I might try and feed before meals to get the extra feeds lost that way instead. DC was a small baby who struggled to gain so advice was to get those nutrients and calories from feeds in anywhere we can, unfortunately allergies mean no cow's milk.

I always cook anything low and slow so hopefully not buzzing any nutrients.

I don't have children and wouldn't be bothered at all by it

You really are talking complete rubbish. Yes, some micronutrients, enzymes and antibodies are probably going to get damaged by heating the breastmilk. That does not mean it will be void of nutrition and that feeding heated breastmilk to a baby is pointless. At all. Fats, proteins, sugars survive the heating process well! Nutrition is not just micronutrients. Babies need calories! Macronutrients count.
You realise that formula is mostly cows milk heated hot enough to to pasturise it, then dried. And that when you make it up you pour boiling hot water on it. And it still retains enough nutrition to be a formula fed baby’s only source of food for months.

I think given its only a few days just skip it. It's probably fine, and obviously you're washing the dishes but it might gross them out so best to just not do it.

The fact that you are asking means that you know some people might feel icky about this.
Only do this if you keep the baby's milk contained to the baby's serving bowl, (and stored in a small bottle, well labelled) and tell others not to eat baby's cereal.
Wash baby's bowl yourself.
I would not cook in someone else's pans with breast milk if I were a house guest. The hosts might be fine with it but they really can't say 'no' when asked without seeming unreasonable and embarrassed.

I agree. You are putting them in an uncomfortable situation which isn't very nice. I EBF, there's really no need to be adding it to regular food so going without for a couple of days is fine, if anything probably better to get your baby used to cows milk

Babies don't need cows milk, especially not if they have an allergy to it!

The baby is allergic to cows’ milk!

Oh sorry, I missed that. Surely something else can be used? How old is the baby? If it's on solids then it's obviously now eating food? If there's no other option then maybe ask, although I think that's a bit of a risk. I can imagine their version of AIBU now 😅

What is icky about breast milk? It wouldn't have crossed my mind to ask or care if guests used it in my pan.

Yes.

Are you squirting it straight in? I know we're all supposed to not bat an eye at breasts being flung about, but personally I wouldn't want you whacking them out over the hob, and hosing milk into pans while I'm making toast.

If I invited you to stay and I found you boiling your menstrual cup in my pan, you, your cup, my pan and the boiling water would be lobbed outside, never to return. If it was a free pan and a roasting hot shower you were after, you could consider it a win.

This is a really extreme reaction...!

@skyfalldown I for one am glad more people are using reusable.

Period blood is clearly nothing like breastmilk but while we're on the subject, I find it desperately sad how much taboo still remains about menstruation even in (I'm assuming) uk culture. There are countries where, in rural areas say, women and girls have to isolate when on their period. The comment above reminds me of that. It's just so wrong.

It's no coincidence that these are uniquely female processes that are taboo - breastfeeding and menstruation. Even when the pots are thoroughly cleaned afterwards, some people seem to think we've tainted them forever with our essence somehow.

Women are not dirty beings. We don't taint things.

Please do not accuse me of anything like treating menstruation as a taboo subject. I have worked with schools and charities over period poverty.

And you appear to be assuming I’m anti-menstruation cups, why? I have one. Would I boil my period-blood-cup in someone else’s pan in their home? Would I fuck.

Do not take a hygiene issue and turn it into discrimination.

OK, that's great that you are also happy with period cups.

But boiling a period cup in a pan, which then gets cleaned thoroughly, is not a hygiene issue, because the pan is both cleaned and sterilised. It is a "taint" issue. It is the thought of the "ick" or whatever that made you say you'd throw the period-cup-user "out of your house" together with the cleaned pan.

I don't think I'll convince you all at once but maybe you'll stop and think about it. You're using hygiene as an excuse but imo actually it's a (subconscious) disdain for menstruation.

No way would I be whacking my boobs out to express it in front of them! I'm all for open breastfeeding and support the right to it no end but always make sure I'm discreet/covered when I feed DC.

I agree with posters that if the request makes the hosts uncomfortable then there's no point in asking. I'm going to pump but I'll just add the milk into DC's own bowl after.

If they’re fine with milk from another species, they would be pretty weird and thick to not be ok with milk from a fellow human.

TBH, I’d just think it’s a bit strange. Going to the faff of expressing milk for the sole purpose of using it to cook with seems ridiculous. I’m sure given the choice, the child would prefer to take the milk straight from the breast and have their eggs without the totally heathen addition of milk - from any source!
If you were a guest in my house I wouldn't object, but I’d secretly snigger at doing this.

How old is your baby?

this!

if I cut myself on someone else’s knife, is that knife now disgusting and unclean forever? What if I had a nosebleed and I leaned over a bowel to catch it? It’s not like any blood even gets in the pan, I obviously rinse the cup first…

What’s the hygiene issue, please?

The cup is clean. No menstrual blood enters the pan. The purpose of boiling it is to sterilise. The clean cup is boiled for several minutes in water at 100°, and then the pan is washed in hot soapy water.