to breastfeed in public even though DH is uncomfortable with it and thinks I should find somewhere private?

[Sequine]

DS is 7weeks. He often struggles to latch and slips off repeatedly during a feed, so I dislike feeding under a shawl and find it hard to be discreet, as I need to keep reattaching him. I wear wrap dresses so I can just pull dress and bra down at one side. I don't really care if anyone sees my breast and don't feel the need to hide away in a corner or find a baby changing room for privacy. I've BF in the middle of Costa, in restaurants, in clothes shops and in a furniture shop, also in GP waiting room and in the back of a taxi as DS was crying and hungry. However, DH thinks BF should be a private thing and thinks I should either feed under a shawl or take a bottle of expressed milk. He said not to be surprised if shop manager asks me to feed elsewhere. My BF support group all say they feed anywhere and are against shawls as they think it makes BF out to be something obscene.
What do others think? Would you be offended by someone BF a small baby without a shawl? Are there places where its inappropriate to BF?

So actually, you are t objecting to people breastfeeding in public, but to people taking babies out in public? A bottle fed baby would inconvenience the old ladies having their scones just as much. Or maybe they should have stayed away, too, inconveniencing the busy thirty something customers with their walking sticks and ostentatious wrinkles (couldn't they just have the decency to get a facelift?). I don't want to live in a society where people think it's ok to exclude sections of society.

And if you really do regularly see three year old twins tandem nursing in restaurants, can I suggest you get some lottery tickets, as you are clearly someone who attracts unusual occurrences. I hardly ever see three year old twins in restaurants, which makes the odds of finding any tandem nursing there vanishingly small.

There are absolutely women out there who lob their breasts out ostentatiously

Again, what does this 'lobbing' actually look like?

They tandem feed their three year-old twins in restaurants

So is it inappropriate to feed twins? Or to tandem feed? Or to feed three-year-olds? Or to feed in restaurants? Or are those things all okay individually, but only become unacceptable in combination? If you were paying less than £32, would it be okay then? £22? £12? McDonalds?

I'm not refusing to be discreet; I'm just trying to find out what exactly you are expecting me to do.

So actually, you are t objecting to people breastfeeding in public, but to people taking babies out in public?

I think infant feeding is something women can't really win over (on mn anyway, I'm not sure in real life many people give a toss actually). Bf and you aren't discreet enough/should be in a toilet/ wear a tent over your head and ff and well tut tut you bad mother

ElleandAitch
What does it matter what you think? Or what you like? The law, and other people's freedoms will never be structured around your personal preferences. Discretion, escorted into law as defined by random person on Internet.
They have already been structured around actual principles - the right to feed a baby however you prefer (even if that is with a whole breast on display) vs your right to share that public place.
The only place you have the right to control is your own home. You can impose strict breastfeeding protocol there if you wish.

you don't have any rights -at all- to dictate HOW women breastfeed in public.

you really, really, don't. I know you'd like to control other people's rights, but you're not going to be able to. I can see that it pisses you off not to be able to control other people's behaviour. But you just can't.

Elle as a mother of three mixed race children I reserve the right to challenge racism when I see it.

I am completely in control of my emotions. I have not sworn at pinot, I have not made personal attacks. Despite being called weird for breastfeeding my toddler in public.

Pinot's comment

"Has it moved on though? Or are you going backwards? I just keep seeing pictures of african women holding their children to their breasts"

Is racist towards African women, because she equates breastfeeding openly with going backwards and uses African women breastfeeding their children as an example of this.

An African woman breastfeeding is the same as an English woman breastfeeding. She is providing nutrition, comfort and immunity from diseases to her child. Nothing backwards about that.

"have to be assailed by your whining baby?"

That's got nothing to do with breastfeeding has it? Babies whine when they're not being fed. When they're being fed they're quiet.
"Let's just stop pretending that the public consciousness can be switched easily and comfortably when it suits a breastfeeding woman who decides no discretion - under any circumstance, ever - is appropriate."

I've lived in Kenya. Women breastfeed openly and unselfconsciously in that culture in all settings without feeling the need to buy and use massive capes or covers.

Hysteria about lactating breasts is mainly reserved for cultures where women's bodies are routinely commodified for commercial purposes and where entrenched ff has long made normal breastfeeding pretty much invisible in public.

Stop boring me with tales of Africa. Those cultures are not fed a diet of FHM, TOWIE, Katie Price and all the other puerile contributors to the sexualisation of breasts in the West.

Tell me now...if you do not get your tits out on the beach when on holiday, why the reticence? Surely they are primarily for the feeding of infants, so why be coy? Get 'em out!

Yes, yes, yes....we know buzzwams should be seen as the sacred and magical things that they are, but, thanks to the feminists telling our daughters they can dress like sluts and still be empowered we now live in a perverse reverse where those same daughter's feel awkward breastfeeding in public. Why care what the oldies think when you were happy to spill your knockers round town on a Friday night only five years ago? Make your bloody mind up: do you want teen lads to see your breasts as sacred feeding machines or as wank fodder?

I've read this thread in full and have come to the conclusion that Liesel is far, far, far, far, far too invested in this discussion to not be a bf-ing mother. I don't care whether my hunch is right or wrong, but I do care that the women on here whose only crime it has been to suggest public bf-ing be discreet are being pilloried, bullied, abused and downright torn to shreds by other women.

How embarrassing for you. Here are some posts I've made about my experiences of formula feeding, and me not breastfeeding.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/parenting/a2486175-What-useful-baby-products-appeared-in-the-last-5-years#57225309

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a2466319-Womens-pain-in-childbirth#56566218

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/parenting/a2462442-Husband-being-USELESS-HELP#56458003

I am invested though, invested in women's right to bodily autonomy. I can assure you I'm every bit as aggressive to the more obnoxious lactivists too. The reason for that is because they're also cunts. And you do care if you're wrong, because it's evidently important enough to you that a formula feeding mother couldn't possibly support breastfeeding rights that you feel the need to call her a liar. You wouldn't do that if you weren't invested in the idea- and incidentally, what you've done there is pillorying and bullying, so can the fucking hypocrisy. The victim complex from people who are tearing women to shreds for daring not to satisfy the conditions of discreet breastfeeding they're pushing on them is just astonishing. Look in the mirror, bully.

Elleandaitch - are you one of these weird blokes that don't like women and cruise boards looking for ways to have a go at them? I'm finding it hard to believe that you are actually a woman - the hate is strong. You sound very like the women hating little boy idiots I've come across elsewhere.

if you do not get your tits out on the beach when on holiday, why the reticence?

Because the last time I was on a beach on holiday, it was Scotland in April and bloody freezing.

But do carry on banging on about "buzzwams" instead of specifying what it is you actually want breastfeeding women to do! So much easier to hector other women for not being "discreet" enough when you don't have to decide or explain what you actually mean by "discreet" in the first place, after all.

liesel, I can't engage with such grammatically poor posts and I haven't time to read those links. You have been preternaturally aggressive and you will not convince me that there is no backstory underpinning your investment here.

I am not a man, I am seven months pregnant with my second child and bf-ed my first. I still think a little discretion is a good thing in our highly-sexualised society when old geezers are about or you insist on breastfeeding your four-year old - or indeed when at a Sikh wedding (as hotly debated on AIBU not so very long ago).

53, tell you what...I'll elaborate more fully about my interpretation of 'discrete' when you tell me why you think some women are reticent about getting their breasts out on a hot beach. Or in front of their fathers. Or their teenaged sons.

Oh, okay. You don't actually have any specific ideas, you just want to hector people. Glad you cleared that up!

(psst - maybe look up the difference between 'discreet' and 'discrete', especially if you're going to complain about other people's writing...)

What do you mean by discreet elle? Just wondering if I am or not.

I can answer that ElleandAitch
Some women are reticent about getting their breasts out on a beach because, sadly, wankers like you exist who enjoy making others feel uncomfortable. We're concerned about encountering unpleasantness from you whilst minding our own business. Because you are unpleasant.
Hope that helps.

I still think a little discretion is a good thing in our highly-sexualised society when old geezers are about

What has age got to do with it? Are you suggesting that when men reach 60 they become perverts? Or is it the age old idea that old men are little innocents who have never seen a breast?

I don't sun bathe and cover up my 'tits' along with my back to avoid skin cancer as I have about 600 moles but really it's about being able to do what you want isn't it? I have no objection to women wearing capes to breastfeed if they do wish, the whole point is that they shouldn't have to.

if you do not get your tits out on the beach when on holiday, why the reticence?

I'm very prone to sunburn, even with lots of suncream on. The thought of getting sunburnt breasts isn't very appealing to me.
Although thinking on it, I have breastfed DS2 on a beach, but he thoughtfully positioned his (sunhatted) head to shield my exposed breast from the sun.

(And buzzwams? Is that a real word? First time I've ever heard of it)

I BF my two babies in cafe's etc, but, they never "fell off", thus exposing my whole breast to all and sundry. Mostly, I don't think anyone knew I was feeding. I think that's the issue here. I don't think your DH is saying this to hurt you, he just doesn't feel comfortable with loads of other men seeing your breasts. It doesn't make him a bad person. Tbh, had mine kept "falling off" meaning my whole boob was exposed, I myself wouldn't feel comfortable with that. I would go to the baby room in Mothercare. But maybe that's just me. I wouldn't sunbathe topless either. One of my friends would get her whole boob out in front of everyone when feeding. She'd sit with it out even when the baby had finished. I didn't like it. The men were very uncomfortable. And I think we are a bit hard on men - one minute they are to see boobs as sexual, the next minute they are to be milk machines only, and they have to erase all sexual connotations about boobs.

Hmm...well, taking a baby along to a hot beach is just another example of the selfish entitlement of some mothers.

Oh right. So it's all down to me and ' my ilk', is it, why some mothers wouldn't dream of going topless in front of their teeneged sons? Don't talk disingenuous bollocks.

Yes, how dare I take a breastfeeding infant along on a family trip to the beach so that he can enjoy playing in the sand and splashing in the waves along with his big brother. So very, very selfish of me

Beach, well...exactly. It's all about discretion

Given the amount of bare flesh on display on many beaches, I'm a bit perplexed about how breastfeeding a baby on a beach counts as indiscreet.

Really? My grandmother lived near a beach in a hot country and her children and grandchildren used to visit her every summer for weeks, getting to know our cousins and aunts and uncles and great aunts and great uncles and great grandmother, and we would all, young and old, head out to the beach. The sun-averse stayed under the trees, the rest played in the water or sunbathed. It was a glorious opportunity, and very far indeed from selfish entitlement. I'm very glad that my mother didn't confine herself (and me) to the home until her youngest child was seven or so, and I was a teenager.