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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think you shouldn't breastfeed in a swimming pool

539 replies

HappierThanEverBefore · 28/05/2014 20:13

Went swimming today & as I was walking to the steps there was a lady sitting on them breastfeeding.

I carried on as if nothing was wrong but the mentioned it to the life guard as I walked out. The lady looked disgusted that she was told to stop or carry on else where

AIBU to think it's wrong to breastfeed in the swimming pool

OP posts:

TheScience · 28/05/2014 21:47

violet, the baby is in the pool with all the chemicals

5madthings · 28/05/2014 21:48

I do distance swimming, I and many other swimmers take a bottle of water to the pool, put it at the end of one lane on the side and have a drink if I need to. Not an issue.

TheScience · 28/05/2014 21:49

I wouldn't eat in a changing room either, but I'd still feed a baby in one.

Anyway, this isn't about whether an individual would be happy to feed in a pool or not, it's about whether that choice should be imposed on another mother.

Softlysoftlycatchymonkey · 28/05/2014 21:49

slithy oh yes a piña colada on a cheap lilo !

eminy I breast fed on the pool side out of the water on a bench with my boss going purple just don't see the need to do it in the water. If bsby is getting cold then they should get out and get dry. Newborns are only supposed to in for around 15-20 mins any way.

TheScience · 28/05/2014 21:50

Softly - what's the difference between feeding on the side and feeding on the steps?

Ohwhatfuckeryisthis · 28/05/2014 21:51

Is it not about choice Belles? Your choice not to feed at the side of the pool, that woman's choice to feed there. Her business, no one else's. The difference between choosing to feed wherever and when ever and being shunted into the loo? Well you know where I'm going. It's not the same as getting a sandwich and flask out as others have pointed out.
Op, how did you swim whilst hoiking?

TheLowestFormOfWit · 28/05/2014 21:52

I'm impressed she had her shit together enough to go swimming with a breastfeeding baby.

I cannot for the life of me find anything wrong with this at all. I EBF and will literally whip my boobs out anywhere. Sometimes you've just got to.

If you're a child, you won't bat an eyelid; if you're an adult, you might find it offensive but you're grown up enough to deal with it. The only person directly affected is my DD. And she's also the only person whose opinion I give a shit about.

SaltySeaBird · 28/05/2014 21:52

My DD was EBF until she was 6 months old and I didn't stop until her first birthday, her choice not mine. I trained as a peer supporter and volunteer at the local hospital one evening a fortnight, helping new mothers learn to breastfeed.

So all in all I'm very pro-breast feeding and certainly fed my daughter when I was out and about. She was never covered for a feed but I was always discreet and never flashed all (and I'm a F cup).

However, I don't think in a pool is a suitable place to do it. If she was in there supervising other children she can't do that safely while breastfeeding. If she was there just with her baby then in my opinion, get out and do it discreetly at the side of the pool. I don't think feeding in a pool is safe or sensible really.

There is no need to bare all and breast feed in a way that makes people uncomfortable.

Drgonzosattorney · 28/05/2014 21:53

It widdn't come oot and it widdn't go back in. Ah think it's a Geordie saying as me Grannies wid say time aft.

TheScience · 28/05/2014 21:54

Wow, that's a pretty horrible opinion from someone who is a peer supporter!

Feenie · 28/05/2014 21:56

eminy I breast fed on the pool side out of the water on a bench with my boss going purple just don't see the need to do it in the water. If bsby is getting cold then they should get out and get dry. Newborns are only supposed to in for around 15-20 mins any way.

Who said the baby was newborn - that has nothing to do with it, unless that's yet another ridiculous assumption about bfing.

There is no need to bare all and breast feed in a way that makes people uncomfortable.

More stupid prejudice - why should breastfeeding make anyone uncomfortable?

TheSarcasticFringehead · 28/05/2014 21:56

YANBU.

My general personal rule for feeding my DC (only BFed second one) was that if I would formula feed there, I would breastfeed there. So on the bus, on the bench, tbh anywhere clean and in public, yes. In the toilet- I wouldn't formula feed there, so I wouldn't BFed there as many people expected me to. I wouldn't formula feed in the pool so I wouldn't breastfeed in the pool.

Softlysoftlycatchymonkey · 28/05/2014 21:56

thescience because I wouldn't want sick up to be drifting round me (which then the life guard would have to come over and scoop out ) and I wouldn't want people walking up and down beside or kids splashing around on the steps around me.

BeCool · 28/05/2014 21:56

The woman possibly had another child or 2 with her swimming.

Should she have got those children out of the pool too and made them stand there all wet and cold (if it was a UK pool anyway) while she BF the baby - just so you didn't feel "funny" OP?

TheScience · 28/05/2014 21:58

That's a bit odd Sarcastic - why would you take formula feeding as some kind of norm?

Softly - so you wouldn't do it personally, but you wouldn't object to someone else doing it?

5madthings · 28/05/2014 21:59

Well if it's baby sick you are worried about then we would have to ban all babies from the pool, babies often possett, regardless of whether or not they have just fed.

Eminybob · 28/05/2014 22:02

Salty - Someone being uncomfortable about someone else breast feeding is their problem, and no one else's. How can you say you are an advocate for breast feeding and then make that comment?

Drgonzosattorney · 28/05/2014 22:03

Hang on though, do you not time when you are feeding with daytime activities! I would have thought, feed baby then go for a swim. Am I being daft or naieve?

TheHorseHasBolted · 28/05/2014 22:04

If she was obstructing the steps it would be a problem; if not, I personally wouldn't be bothered by it. You didn't mention how old the baby was but breastfeeding is sometimes the only thing that will console a younger baby, so she might have thought it was better from the point of view of the other swimmers to feed the baby than have it screaming and upsetting everyone (which I think I would agree with).

Softlysoftlycatchymonkey · 28/05/2014 22:05

Ok feenie calm down.

I had that ridiculous assumption because it's normally new babies that go off demand feeding. If I knew my baby was due a feed I would hopefully try and time it better that I wasn't in a cold pool when I was doing it. I breast fed my dd till she was nine months. So don't make assumptions about me.

mindthegap79 · 28/05/2014 22:05

YABU. If it makes you uncomfortable OP, then perhaps you shouldn't be spectating, no?

Tramp? (A Poem for Emily Slough):

BeCool · 28/05/2014 22:06

to all the offended out there, the thing is how you think and feel about where or how a mother feeds her baby is completely irrelevant and completely unimportant, as is "what I would do is ...".

You need to remember that.

Mums can BF where and when they want and this swimming pool BF thing has been done to death already.

Salty was there no training in not being judgemental towards mothers when you became a peer supporter? Surely you of all people should know that you can BF a baby anywhere. Why unsafe? Unsafe for whom? What could be more sensible than feeding a BF baby when they need a feed?

As for the comments re sick in the pool, A) there is ALOT worse in the pool already than a bit of milky sick and B) my 2 babies very very rarely sicked up after a BF - not all babies are puking all the time.

TheScience · 28/05/2014 22:06

Babies don't just feed because they are hungry though, do they.

5madthings · 28/05/2014 22:07

Babies don't always feed to a routine and sometimes they just want a feed for comfort etc.

My elder three never had any kind of pattern or routine to when they wanted feeding.

littlemslazybones · 28/05/2014 22:09

drgnz ebf baby: see boob, want boob, need boob, NEED BOOB!

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