To bf on the shop floor when there's a feeding room?

[TheFlumpFlan]

I think I was being the exact opposite of inconsiderate, friend thinks I was.

In short:

I was on a shopping trip from hell (4 kids wanting school bits) which was unproductive and I was heading back through the department store to the carpark when I saw they had a clarks shoe bit with a sale (empty). I plonked down, asked the assistant if she had ds1 and ds2 size shoes and started to feed whiney velcro baby in order to be heard rather than screamed over. I'm an experienced feeder (top up, other down) and can easily feed strolling around without flashing a nipple though I sat this time with my back to the main walkway. The assistant replied to my request with 'we have a feeding room', I smiled back and said I was fine and asked again for the shoes. She suggested I feed there and popped back, and gave directions, to which I said I knew it was two floors up, full of mothers who are trying to soothe tiny ones who don't need my lot staring at them/ being loud plus I was in a rush. She looked so grumpy getting bits out and affronted by me. I'm not particularly confrontational or particular about bf (I've ebf, mixed and ff equally loved children) but it got my back up a bit. I didn't flash her, was polite, as were the children (though I doubt they would have been stuffed into a small room with nowt to look at) and it was easier for all than listening to a screaming baby.

My sister, mum and friend all maintain it is unreasonable to publically feed unless you must, and stores provide a feeding room so people like me don't take up space feeding or put off others shopping. Yet even the dad on his own didn't look fussed when he came over (I think noone noticed). They say I may have put of business and it's just inconsiderate.

Why oh why oh why is the views that women who are breastfeeding should leave the room when their babies need to be fed?
It is completely unreasonable and discriminatory to make the suggestion.
It would have been ridiculous to have gone to the bloody feeding room at that point.

Oh my gosh blahblah how do you know what most people want or don't want? Your posts about bf are hilarious. Sounds like you have booby issues.

I just think there is a time and place for everything, you are not allowed to eat or drink in a shoe shop and i don't think feeding the baby first or after would have been difficult. It's not normal to walk into a shoe shop and find that someone has set up camp there to feed there LO - I'd be a bit suprised myself, let alone people who have not BF in the past. There are lots of things that are legal, but if it makes other people uncomfortable or i feel it's inappropiate, then i am considerate. The law says i can sit outside and smoke like a chimmney if i wish to, but would i do that in a pub garden if i was sitting next to a chld, of course not. It's not about the law, it's about consideration. It's not Clarkes duty to provide a place for you to feed.

Basically Amanda we are meant to hide away out of sight for the what, 3-6 months where a baby needs pretty regular feeding. If I had taken this attitude on board I wouldn't have left the flipping feeding room between feeds/ changes, nip to the loo and grab a drink for yourself and you'd be heading straight back in there...

Lots of people feel uncomfortable with gay couples, or particular ethnic groups - if the shop assistant felt uncomfortable about a same sex couple holding hands for example, and told them there was a gay bar down the road where they could have done that, should they have respected her discomfort?

Oh yes BFing... Just like smoking.

I was making a point about the law, please do not take it out of context

Consideration? Of what? 99% of normal people wouldn't even have noticed or been remotely bothered. It's a baby feeding underneath a top, u see nothing. It's not a live sex show or anything

But a child is not going to suffer from passive breastfeeding or be exposed to a habit that if they choose to copy will kill them in later life.

FFS. YANBU. Cannot believe the attitudes of people about BF. Imagine if this was a conversation about a wheelchair user and people were whining 'but it made me feel uncomfortable', 'it took up too much space', 'so inconsiderate of other customers'.

Seriously, how did it happen that people got so hung up and prissy about boobs??

The more people that feed in public the better, it is the only way to normalize it in the eyes of Joe Public.

And no, I am not 'brestapo', 'the breast brigade' or 'lactivist'. I am just a normal mother who wants other mothers to be able to feed hungry babies in the way they choose without being discriminated against.

It's not out of context! How can you compare smoking next to someone, which is proven to cause harm, to breastfeeding next to someone, which doesn't? It's not the feeding woman's/ baby's problem if that person doesn't like it!

It is in context though. You think it's inapproprtiate to smoke around a child. So do I. You think it's inappropriate to breastfeed in front of other people. I wonder why.

Oh and it's less revealing than posters advertising underwear.

I think Blah rather nicely illustrates why we need the law which protects women's right to breast feed without harassment, and hurrah for the existence of such a law!

YANBU

Oh dfo.
Of course you allowed to feed a baby.
and no, proprietors a not entitled to dictate what they feel uncomfortable about and ask ppl to leave.. Wtf?
What would happen if someone felt uncomfortable about serving a gay couple in mothercare? Think it through.

Of course yanbu. It is indirect sex discrimination and covered by Equality Act 2010.

It is only a problem for people who think breastfeeding is anything less than normal and unremarkable. And those people are as stupid as those who think black people, gay people or any other normal people are not normal.

For those people may I suggest the following if breastfeeding offends:

1. Looking away.
2. Fucking off somewhere else.
3. Covering up... your own head with a paper bag.

I've never used a feeding room, and always fed wherever I've had to, public or not. Attitudes to breastfeeding in this country need to change and part of that is about people seeing it as the natural, normal, essential part of life that it is. Why should it be hidden away as if it's something to be ashamed of?

It's not out of context! How can you compare smoking next to someone, which is proven to cause harm, to breastfeeding next to someone, which doesn't? It's not the feeding woman's/ baby's problem if that person doesn't like it!

The point was that i was perfectly within my legal right to do so, but wouldn't out of consideration. The fact I used smioking as an example is irrelevant.

Most women are very discreet but believe me when i tell you some are very much not!

I honestly would not find it at all weird to walk into the Clarks children's section and see someone breastfeeding or bottle feeding a baby, or indeed giving snacks to a baby/toddler in a pushchair.

Whenever I have been there it has been full of kids and you are usually waiting ages to be seen - not surprising a baby can't wait to be fed.

A woman should feed her baby wherever she wants within sensible reason. Don't do it sat on the check out belt or on a zebra crossing.

There was a piece in the paper yesterday moaning about the Mass Feed done the other day. Poor delicate "journalist" couldn't cope with seeing a small amount of a bare breast .

What difference does it make if the woman isn't "discreet", whatever that means? You might risk seeing a nipple if you look at her breasts? Just don't look if you are scared of nipples

But i guess like many things once covered by law you get the "i can do what i want where i want" brigade who want to showcase their rights

"
Most women are very discreet but believe me when i tell you some are very much not!"

Oh no, did you see a female nipple????

or indeed giving snacks to a baby/toddler in a pushchair

They have, lilke most stores, a no food or drinks in store policy

just saying