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?

@placemats

That's the title. But the OP then says it was a general parent room with a curtain. Which is where the fuzziness has come in.

In the private/ curtained off space - no, they shouldn't be there as it is clear women are seeking privacy. But I don"t think you can van men from the room.totally if that's where the baby change is.

Okay, let's move on now...

No, they aren't. Men can never change their babies. Not now, not ever. There are no toilets anywhere designated mixed sex and mixed use ie disabled and baby change. And there certainly aren't any in John Lewis.

When a man is out shopping with a baby he has to wipe the shit on his nice smart suit and serve him right too for not having tits.

This is because women rule the world.

I would automatically assume a breastfeeding room was a female space... you know, since men can't breastfeed. Esp if in a wider area and curtained off, otherwise why bother with the curtains.

I certainly wouldn't be inviting my DH to come in.

And whilst I and my husband are not religious... My FIL is muslim and lives in a conservative Muslim country, where my husband grew up. So when we're visiting family we are aware of and follow cultural norms.

For what I think might be the tenth time, there are numerous changing facilities not co-located with feeding facilities. I know this. I’ve been in dozens.
I mean, I suppose it’s possible a man with a baby might have to choose another changing location on finding his initial choice is in a feeding room. But I am prepared to pay men in general the compliment of believing most of them will deal with that with a reasonable degree of stoicism.
To the poster suggesting ask some normal men -excellent suggestion, but I suspect a few on here might not have had exposure to many of those, if their contributions to the thread are anything to go by.

I mean if you ask the shop to create a space that is female only just for breastfeeding... they are then going to need a space for bottle feeding dads, a space for changing the babies for either sex...
Do you think they are going to make all these separate spaces or are they going to say that if you want complete guaranteed privacy from men then you are going to need to go in a lockable cubicle in the womens toilets that already exists? Or use a cover.

In some shops they make it unisex and having the changing table in there and a toilet and a chair and a lock on the door.. so you could lock yourself in there feeding if you wanted complete privacy from men...

But when it's a larger room for more than one person to use they are just not going to make it for onesex only because it's going to cost loads of money and hardly anyone would bother using it because not many women need guaranteed privacy from men at all times whilst breastfeeding. So it would just not be worth their while...

I think it's fair for men to be allowed access to baby changing facilities. If the only one is in the feeding room, then these rooms to need to be adjusted and a changing table should be added to mens toilets. Until then, it's not fair to ban men from using these facilities where they are located imo.

www.google.com/amp/s/metro.co.uk/2018/10/09/dads-campaign-for-baby-changing-tables-in-mens-toilets-8020937/amp/

Or they could just curtain off a small area of the larger room with some chairs, Krisskrosskiss, and expect that people will use a bit of common sense?

And yet when I had babies 10 years ago krisskross that’s exactly how it was. And no nutty threads on MN from people pretending not to understand why either.
Why do men need a private space to bottlefeed? They don’t. There is no equivalence here between the male need and the female need. This unthinking blinkered belief that equality equals sameness - it doesn’t.
I

Or they could just curtain off a small area of the larger room with some chairs, Krisskrosskiss, and expect that people will use a bit of common sense?

Exactly. Everyone's happy and costs are kept low.

I bet you'd be happy breast feeding in a cafe op.
Why shouldnt a dad come in to talk to his bf wife.

FFS put women back 20 years!

Women faught for BFing facilities to avoid feeding babies in toilet cubicals. Other women muscled in, then the men folk and the BFeeders are shoved back in the toilet where they started.

Why shouldnt a dad come in to talk to his bf wife
If dad and bf wife are happy feeding in public/ in front of men, why don't they go to the cafe?

@53rdWay yes but that doesnt guarantee anyone complete privacy from men because someone might draw the curtain and there might be a man in the other part of the room etc... to guarantee complete privacy from men you are going to have to go in a lockable cubicle which probably will be the toilet.

I haven’t got very far in this thread. But had to pass comment as I sit gobsmacked reading @Pippinsqueak comment of her desire for her dh to be by the baby in a bf room. How totally unaware of others needs.

As for @OvO. You do have solutions and in your circumstances can either choose to use a normal feeding room accessible for parents of either sex or bottle feed. Your need to have your partner present whilst breastfeeding doesn’t trump another woman’s need for privacy. Just because your dh is desensitised to breasts, it doesn’t follow that women should just accept his presence.

I used to be a frequent visitor to the breastfeeding area at John Lewis. There was also another feeding area. I was very unimpressed and felt extremely uncomfortable one day when the grandmother of a baby being breastfed sat inside the area with her dd. Had it been a man I would have been very upset. It isn’t about people perving but about my personal boundaries and desire to feed in private when out alone with my dd.

@TheBigBallOfOil its not the men who need the private space it's the newborn babies who might need to be fed in a calmer quieter atmosphere than the shop floor.
It may have been that way in the past which might have so nothing to do with how little childcare men actually did back then.

yes but that doesnt guarantee anyone complete privacy from men because someone might draw the curtain and there might be a man in the other part of the room etc...

...or there could be a fire, and the firefighters might be men... or someone might have a heart attack and the paramedics might be men... or Batman could jump in the window chasing the Joker...

But in the real world, most women who are uncomfortable breastfeeding in public would be just fine with a curtained-off area, if men didn't see it as their right to amble in and have a chat as in the OP.

I'm glad that men are campaigning for changing facilities in their toilets. Women certainly had to. In the meantime, any place that provides toilets for public use has to provide a toilet for disabled people and the vast majority of these are dual use ie are designated disabled toilet and baby change and all are mixed sex. So men can go there.

@EdtheBear I personally think it puts wo,en back 20 years to suggest they need to be completely hidden from men whilst breastfeeding

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 posters have specifically said that any feeding area is only for breast feeding and that anyone wanting to bottle feed hould do it elsewhere - either on a bench or in a cafe.

So, no. It isn't only about a specific, separate breast feeding area.

I've already said that if it's a breast feeding area, separate from general feeding and changing areas then no reason for men to be there but in a general feeding area of course men should be allowed. I don't see why they have to use a cafe rather than an area provided for all parents/carers.

Krisskrosskiss, have you perchance tried reading the rest of this thread at all?

@53rdWay but that is not what some people on here were saying... they were saying they wanted it to be specified as a completely female only space... which a curtain in a unisex room is not

Seriously. Rest of this thread. Give it a go.

Actually, what people are saying is that men need to be hidden from women while women are breastfeeding.