about the breastfeeding cafe in Cheltenham?

[NotNewButNameChanged]

Sorry if someone has already done this but I haven't spotted it if so.

I live in Cheltenham and there is a café proudly displaying a sign saying:

"Breastfeeding mums. Pop in and have a free cup of tea if you need a pit stop. No need to eat, no need to ask - please relax "

I am very torn about this. On the one hand, it's great to be supportive of breastfeeding and we know it is illegal to discriminate against breastfeeding mums. But on the other, it's basically discriminating against mums who either can't breastfeed or choose not to. Somehow makes me feel that it's saying breastfeeding mothers are more important and deserving than other mothers.

Am I being unreasonable in being torn?

No, noodle, many of my breast feeding friends used to warm their expressed milk.

Queen I think health visitors are just generally sent from hell to cause every new mum misery. As if giving birth and being sent home with a tiny human to look after wasn't bad enough, here's a strange woman who will criticise your every choice and enter you into competitive weighing competitions my daughter is a happy 25th centile baby and there is nothing I can change about that

I think it's important to remember about these nasty people that even if you breastfeed, they'll find something else to get you on. Disposable nappies, not babywearing constantly, not following one rigid method of parenting. I think you're absolutely right - if it's seen to be working, it's seen as a challenge to their 'perfect' way of parenting, and suddenly they may not be so perfect.

It must be a sad way to raise children, constantly seeing it as a competition :(

Santana We get it. You're envious/outraged/offended that someone somewhere might get something that doesn't affect you in any way.

Acceptance- well who feels accepted here? The woman getting a freebie over the woman presumably turned down for one because she decided to use her body differently.
Why does one deserve more acceptance than the other?
Santana, you've still not explained to me why a woman who has chosen to use their body to have a baby needs to get the freebie of an extra meal (that she may or may not give to a child certainly not the Freddo bar ) when the woman who made a different choice gets nothing.
Come to think if it, women get free dental care, prescriptions - child benefit even. All down to a choice.

Just you wait until weaning moom.

My baby DD was such a nightmare a cup of tea in a cafe was genuinely as good as a week in the Seychelles

No, you don't get it runes. It would have affected me to have managed to leave the house and get to a cafe and sit down (see point above!) and then to be told that I didn't qualify for something because I wasn't feeding her 'properly. You are being totally dismissive of me.

You don't have to do anything to get that meal though Iggi, just present a child. You don't have to demonstrate how you feed that child. Whereas that sign in that cafe would say 'lovely baby, but are you breast feeding her? No! Why not?!' And that's only my business.

They are not saying your not feeding her properly though.

Because you are.

I understand that FF parents sometimes get a hard time for that decision, and more often than BFers do, but that doesn't mean that BFing mothers should not receive support and the idea promoted for fear of negating inference by FFers.

Must.Go.To.Sleep. Now...

Then why aren't both feeding choices rewarded?

You are reading so much into this Santana, no one in that cafe is going to quiz mothers on how their babies are fed. Perhaps if they'd stick to "bf welcome here" it would have caused less controversy. But know, would that carry the

It's clear you have issues with your feeding choices, there is nothing in the café's message that indicates that ffers would be judged negatively. You're projecting.

Therapy? thanks for your concern.

One feeding choice gets rewarded and one doesn't. I am not projecting.

I will ask again if you would feel the same of the sign was reversed and formula feeders got the perk.

..implication that ff wasn't welcome? The welcome is required because of the difficulties - real and imagined - that women have with revealing something of their breast in public, after decades of doing nothing like this, very few real-life examples of other women bf, and the occasional awful news report about someone being called a slag for bf.

No one is being rewarded for feeding their baby. You'd be arrested if you didn't!

It's breeding contempt - not just from formula-feeding mothers, but from plenty of people wondering why breastfeeding mums are seen as more 'worthy' of this treat than others?

I think this is pathetic. If people really felt contemptuous over it, I would rather they didn't frequent a business of mine, and took their sour attitudes elsewhere. Contemptuous? Really? Over a cup of tea? How pitiful!

It's not a reward to get a drink if that drink brings you up to the same level of hydration as someone who doesn't bf! It's an equalisation.
Off to bed now.

I'm terrified already

There would need to be solid reasoning behind a reverse sign, if you could think of an example why I'd be happy to consider it.

Of course it's a reward, everyone loves a free cup of tea.

Water would be enough if it was just about rehydration.

I take it that's a no, runes.

I too ff and had nasty stares sent my way aplenty. Sign should read bf welcome here. Then every one pays for their own drinks. If you are hungry or thirsty you are in a cafe...buy something. If you are out and about, bring a snack and a drink. Hardly rocket science.

It's not about the cup of tea, Noodle, it's the principle behind it. It emphasises the divide, that's what creates contempt.