about the breastfeeding cafe in Cheltenham?

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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?

Shouldn't the sign say bf and ff welcome. Wouldn't want anyone getting the wrong idea. But then what if people think only feeders are welcome. Best to put everyone welcome. But then is it not obvious that people are welcome, it's a business after all. No need for a sign at all then. It's not like anyone has issues with bfing in public, I'm sure it'll all be just fine with no one ever doing anything positive at all ever.

Moomin

It's a sad way to live, full stop!
It took me years to properly work it out, despite being surrounded by the unpleasantness, but I finally cottoned on that the true judgmental pillock effect was the result of a worldview that didn't actually comprehend "good-enough". They don't believe there can be a range of basically similar choices that are all okay.

For my mother and her ilk, every single choice in life is like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. They think they're surrounded by hundreds of cups, with lethal longterm consequences and only one cup, the Holy Grail, is safe. Once I figured that out (unfortunately, post some rather unpleasant incidents to do with weaning ), I found it easier
to cope with.

I now realise that they do it with everything.

Tilly's mother: what have you done recently?
Tilly: bought a new CD player
Tilly's mother: ooh, what brand?
Tilly: um, panasonic.
Tilly's mother: ooh, is that the best one? You know how I've been looking for one for the last three months.
Tilly: um, it was affordable and fitted the hi-fi cabinet, and it was in stock at Argos in town.
Tilly's mother: but was it the best?!

I won't even mention the conversation about the best USB cable, or how she wanted to wait to get an email address until Which had run an article comparing all the free email providers... That was 7 years ago, and I haven't recovered!

It is of course entirely up to the café. I assume they know their target audience and have factored in the possibility of putting other customers off.

The sign would have put me off when I was bf and with bells on when I switched to formula and would still put me off now. I don't have small children and "family friendly" isn't a selling point.

So unless it was fantastically and exceptionally good and/or the only café I wouldn't use it. I'm guessing you can't throw a stick in Cheltenham without hitting a café.

If people are feeling contemptuous over a perceived slur and division from such a sign, I feel sorry for them. Being appropriately emotionally stable is a much more important trait for a parent to have than their decision over FF and BF.

It seems to me that it's a rather clever marketing ploy. A cafe wants to do two things:-

1. Get people to come in. (Bums on seats - BOS)
2. Get people to stay for ages buying lots of yummy cakes etc. (Flog you stuff -FYS.)

Breast feeders:-
Need to find somewhere to sit to feed (BOS)
Sometimes do feel unwelcome in places. (BOS)
Trapped (sometimes for bloody hours) once started. (FYS.)
Get raging thirst when feeding. BOS & FYS
Makes you bloody starving quite hungry. FYS
Are an organised network so will give them lots of lovely free publicity. BOS.
Are a bit controversial leading to debate leading to lots of lovely free publicity. BOS.

It really is genius when you think it.

The thing is a ff mother wouldn't think twice about going into any cafe and feeding their baby. A bfing mother always feels slightly self-conscious to a greater or lesser degree.

This.

It makes some sense for practical reasons, as others have already said. BFing requires you to rehydrate, although I think water would be more appropriate because of the risk of spilling and scalding (already said too).

It does discriminate though as FFing mothers may need to stop and feed their babies too, without feeling they have to buy something.

The cynic in me says they put it up knowing that a load of earth mothers would make it 'go viral' and give them free advertising. A sign saying 'Mothers are welcome to feed their babies here without purchasing food or drink' is preferable, and provide tap water for everyone.

Imagine if you FF but felt incredibly guilty about it either because BF failed or at every opportunity you were made to feel like you were somehow failing your child. Then picture going into one of these cafés and having to FF your baby, how out of place and awful it would make you feel.

Honestly it'd be better just to have a cafe for parents and young children and have one of the 'Breastfeeding welcome here' signs. Not exclusively BF.

Oh dear god it's a cup of bloody tea! It's a tiny thing and probably a sight cheaper than all the bottle warming facilities which might make breast feeding mothers feel out of place and discriminated against and not 'rewarded for their choice'

Breast feeding is better for babies and that is why health visitors promote it and why we should be doing what we can to encourage people to do it and keep doing it. If you can't or don't, obviously the baby will be fine, but they don't promote it for a laugh or to be mean. Or to deny anyone the fantastic 'reward' that is a cup of bloody tea.

Bfing didn't work out for me and I think part of the reason was because I did feel too self conscious. If I saw a sign like that I would be over the moon as I would hope it would give others a better chance of it going well. As a ff feeder it wouldn't bother me.

Jesus

Get a grip

Aren't breastfeeding signs just the same thing, it says breastfeeding welcome here, not all feeding welcome here. Because it really goes without saying that cafe owners etc are highly unlikely to be funny with you over feeding with a bottle,

The cuppa is just a nice little gesture that shouldn't be taken as an implied insult.

I actually can't believe there is 6 pages of upset over a free cup of tea. Thank fuck they weren't offering free cake!

Any mother that feels judged, it is absolutely nothing to do with feeding and everything to do with judgemental idiots. If its not feeding, they will judge how your child is dressed, how you interact with them, how you are transporting them, whether they should be in bed, how loud they are, how you deal with it, Etc etc etc

We see threads on here every day saying 'AIBU to think this mother shouldn't have blah blah blah' - JUDGING.

FGS it's a promotional offer of a cup of tea to drum up business. They're appealing to a particular network of woman as they think they've found a niche in the market, that doesn't mean all others are excluded. Good luck to them.

I would be pissed off by this too and it's nothing to do with being emotionally unstable.

I do think it's well intentioned, but it's more of a sticking plaster approach. It fixes nothing and it makes everyone look! A far better environment has comfy chairs for women who want to feed and a few nooks for privacy.

I am also interested to know how the staff check you are breast feeding!

Oh boo hoo some people get a free drink. Well, bf mums save the tax payer money so maybe this establishment wanted to give back.

I will say it again, as the point seems to have got lost.

That 'sticking plaster' is part of a joint initiative between the Gloucester Breastfeeding Support Network and the NHS.

Yes, a bunch of breastfeeding mums stopped whimpering about people being mean and got off their backsides and did something about it.

And all some of you lot want to do is whinge that you have been excluded, it's not fair... well the answer is simple. Put in the same amount of concerted effort and get things changed in your area... or will you continue to insist that someone can't have a thing just because you can't... childish.

If you feel so slighted DO SOMETHING about it. Until then stop pissing on everyone elses chips!

Yeah like the cafe was thinking that womble!

Get things changed? I am all for breast feeding and fed my own 2 until they self weaned. I would be incensed if I saw a sign offering formula feeders a free cup of tea.

NoMama some people want to, but don't have the time (plus, can you imagine the outrage from some people on MN if they got wind of a FF-only support group?).

It isn't about the cup of tea. It isn't about the fact that some people get something that we do. It's the reason they get it, and the underlying attitude of it. We're all well aware that breastfeeding is best for the baby, we get that fact rabbitted at us at every appointment. Just lately, however, there seems to be an attitude that breastfeeding mums are better mums. This sign isn't promoting that, or saying that - but you can't blame formula-feeding mums for feeling the sting when it's constantly forced in our faces that other mums are better and their babies are apparently going to be so much better than ours when they're older.

I'm not saying the cafe was wrong, I'm just saying there seems to be an underlying attitude, even in this thread, that it's impossible to discriminate against formula feeding mums, and while it's fine for breastfeeding mums to complain about some perceived injustice and it's all "We'll arrange a nurse-in!" and "Poor you, at least you're doing the right thing for your baby", if a formula feeding mum does it, it's childish and immature.

Exactly Moomin.

I would be mortified if I was in this cafe and received a free cup of tea while a formula feeding mother was charged for hers. I am not more deserving than her.

But, Moomin, I didn't read that into it at all. Every FF mum who has written something like that has come across as being very angry, or very precious, some sound really mean spirited, wanting to take away something other women have worked hard for, just because they feel slighted.That is how it reads to someone who is not invested in the story.

The shop isn't promoting anything, it has simply joined an initiative that helps bfing mums find somewhere pleasant and supportive to sit down and feed their child.

Anything else that is being read into it comes from the experiences of the writer... the café is just being proactive for bfing mums.

And, as I know the specific café, if a FFing mum went in they'd get a freebie too. So it is all, literally, a storm in a teacup.

if a FF feeding mum went in they'd get a freebie too

Then the sign should reflect that! Something like babes in arms feeding, cuppa for cuddles or something suitably twee.

All the women who have posted on here and asked why they would be deemed less worthy of a little treat because of the way they feed their child are completely entitled to those feelings. This sign effectively says that they are less special and less deserving, and that is totally wrong.

No-one wants to take away from breastfeeding mums. If they were to offer it to all mums feeding their babies, would that be taking anything away from breastfeeding mums? Or if they'd never offered it in the first place, but made breastfeeding mums feel welcome as a rule, would that be taking anything away from breastfeeding mums?

I agree with the others who say the cynical side of me thinks this is all a marketing ploy, hoping that it'd be picked up on by all the 'crunchy moms' style websites and social media groups, for extra publicity.

Fucking hell - it is a breastfeeding support group initiative!

There is nothing in it that says ffing is lesser than - THAT comes from elsewhere.

Of course it is a commercial decision, the café is a commercial enterprise! But the idea came from mums...

Why would you do that to yourself? That is see a nasty side to every nice thing that doesn't have your name on it? It must make life really tiresome!