To think that men shouldn't come into breastfeeding rooms

[Lycidas]

I occasionally use the John Lewis feeding room (mainly for the delightful motion of the rocking chair), and I've noticed that men tend to enter quite often in order to chat to their partners, even when there are other women feeding in there. There are three chairs in total. The feeding area is separated from the wider changing room by a curtain, which suggests that there should be some degree of privacy for self-conscious women.

Fair enough, the men who tend to go in will make a conscious effort to just face their partners, but I still find it mildly uncomfortable to have them in there, and a distraction from the whole experience tbh, looking up, covering just 'in case', which I don't particularly want to be doing in a changing room. If I wanted to be faffing about with a muslin I may well just feed outside as normal.

AIBU?

Most posts are about supportive husbands and partners who wouldn't dream of entering a place where there are breast feeding women because they understand and are supportive.

Exactly. It's perfectly possible to be a supportive dad and partner without encroaching on women who are breastfeeding.

To insinuate otherwise is unmitigated bullshit.

No they really aren't.

I think what it is, is that some people read a curtained off area separate in a baby changing etc zone, which has nothing except chairs, while girls warmers etc are outside, as for bf women, some see this as for anyone who wants to sit behind curtain with a baby.

Some saying that as its not the law, men can and should go in there etc.

I disagree.

I went to our local jl when dd1 was small specifically for the small closed area with 2 chairs and nothing else. The men stayed outside with the chairs, children's toilet cubicles, bottle warmers, changing stations etc.

Id think any man who felt that it was better behind the curtain and why should it be for women only do they think they're special was a complete arse tbh. It was ibviously for bf women. I think our may have been labelled as such, 99% sure but this was along time ago. If not it's pretty obvious surely.

Any posts about "parenting areas" seem to be from people trying to create an alternative reality loop in which this is a thread about parenting areas.

It isn't a thread about parenting. It's a thread about a separate breastfeeding area behind a curtain, with no changing tables or "bottle feeding station". Only women who have delivered a baby relatively recently can breastfeed. Only women breastfeeding their infant should be in breastfeeding areas.

Some people seem to think swapping out the word breastfeeding for parenting won't be noticed and they can make a point by insisting that we're all really talking about dads doing general all round parenting, nappy changing etc. This has absolutely nothing to do with breastfeeding, which only mothers can do.

Men support the breastfeeding of anyone who isn't their partner by having the common decency to leave mothers who indicate they want privacy by seeking out curtained off space or special rooms in peace, and going to any of the other 99.9% of places in the vicinity open to both sexes.

Men support their own partner breastfeeding by being positive about it when asked and by providing food and drinks to the mother in the early stages of cluster feeding and post operative/ post labour bodily discomfort.

Going with your partner by going into a breastfeeding room as the baby's father is not supportive, it's intrusion into a space set aside for breastfeeding women and babies only.

And anyone who thinks a father with a breastfeeding wife automatically will not perve on other women's breasts, is majorly naive.

You clearly didn't get the memo. Men can go anywhere the fuck they like because, well, they're men.

@placemats

You have said men shouldn't go in general parent rooms or baby change facilities because they shod only be for women. How is that not having a go? And you keep arguing this. I and others have said that in 99% of circumstances me shouldn't be in breastfeeding rooms... But that a parent feeding and changing room is not that.

Yes so women like me breastfeed in toilet cubicles, just so you can chat to hubby.
Although I did read the comment that women like me should just stay at home.

I think the real shame is that we ever have to have this post. Shouldn't women be able to breastfeed publicly without having to resort to hiding away behind a curtain.

@jennymanara I have not said that. Please do not rewrite what I have said.

I have said. Breastfeeding areas - women only.

Parent areas - mums and dads and carers.

Some posters like @placemats have said dads should never go in patent areas at all. Even if that's where the baby change is. I and others have disagreed with that.

I don't think anybody is saying Dads shouldn't enter the parenting room where the family loo and change tables are, the question is should they be behind the curtain in the tiny feeding area (which is 3ft from the bin)

Incidently the radio was talking about toilet charges in big railway stations turn me to thinking. If you dont need you'd wait outside for DP.
I was thinking if people had to pay to use the area behind the curtain who would pay 50p to use it?

@EdtheBear the issue is done posters were arguing that.

There are always baby changing areas elsewhere.
And many have made it clear on here that they want their husbands there to chat too, or so they can bottle feed babies.

Pushing so women can breastfeed in public seems to have turned into that women should breastfeed in public.

Edith obviously Bibi doesn't give a flying what you think because 'the issue is done.'

Depends why they are in there and what the room is like... we have one in our nearest john Lewis but round a corner it's the baby changing room. And it's got no sign to say it's just for mums or anything so men do come in to change their babies whilst women are sat feeding... they are round a corner though so not in direct sight.
Also I think if a mum has two babies, twins or children close in age then she might need a partner to help her with them whilst she is feeding one etc... or if a mother has birth injuries or has medical issues that means she needs a bit of help...
I dont think as a rule that men should hang about in there though no.... but I dont think they should be completely banned because there might be a genuine need to have them there once in a while.

This thread is proof that we desperately need to normalise bottle feeding so that vulnerable men feel comfortable doing it in public. Also, I do feel for them. Poor men.
It must be sheer hell to be a bloke who isn't recovering from birth and isn't breastfeeding finding out that there are two chairs in the entire city that they can't sit on to bottle feed their babies.

Is it just me that finds what amounts to a segregationist mindset rather worrying? The idea that women should be hidden away from 'strange' men is not one that's ever done women any favours, and those superstitions/cultures that go heavy on the idea of women being 'modest' and concealing themselves and their bodies are rarely pushing this agenda for the benefit of women.

Now I do think that there should be cubicles for anyone who wants to BF without an audience (it can be just as annoying, intrusive and intimidating to have another nursing mother insist on engaging you in conversation/giving you unwanted advice/commenting on your tits) but this insistence that men should be shut out of feeding areas is all too easy to spin into: care of newborns is women's work, men can't do it because they aren't genetically designed to... do any domestic work or childcare at all.

There's always been a rather worrying strand in feminism which is deeply prurient and obsessed with the idea of perverts being everywhere - and that strand of feminism always likes to cosy up with the hard right, sooner or later. Excessive policing of who is allowed to go where and scaremongering about 'fetishes' and sexual deviance is the sort of thing that ends up with women being confined to their homes. For their own good.

Why are you shopping with birth injuries so serious you need help to breast feed? I can understand a quick go into the supermarket and back home again, but seriously, a 'jaunt' around John Lewis with significant birth injuries? The internet is here for a reason!

SGB missing the point spectacularly, YET AGAIN.

I have to say though, SGB never fails.

Fuma

@placemats

I don't think you have read my comments. I have been entirely consistent. As have you. In being rude, alarmist and frankly ridiculous about how men shouldn't ever use unisex parent facilities. You deliberately misrepresent anyone who has a different view to you.

FFS I see this is degenerating further.
Clearly an issue that common sense and good manners admirably took care of in the past is now so difficult to negotiate that we need legislation. Because the circumstances in which men are denied anything must be tightly circumscribed of course.
How have people become so helplessly stupid? I mean, I know DH is a Cambridge graduate. But he really didn’t need to be to manage this one.

Because, in the past, men didn't need legislation to keep them out of 'women's things'... like housework, nappy-changing, taking the DC swimming. And that was Just Fine. Obviously.

Maybe people with birth injuries want to go out shopping because they are depressed just sat at home all day? I dont know... I remember going to the cafe a couple of days after I'd given birth with severe tearing because I just couldn't stand to sit in my house any more... I really did need my husband to be on hand at all times because I found it hard to walk and pick up and put down my baby sometimes... I'm sure many other women have similar experiences.. I didnt use a breastfeeding room or anything.. but I can see how it might happen that a woman might need her husband in there. So no I doht agree with men going in there to just have a chat.. but I do think sometimes they can be doing legitimate things in there in helping a mum with her newborn or with twins or babies close in age.