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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Breastfeeding toddler in a shop, AIBU?

999 replies

Refreshed · 17/02/2020 11:46

To cut a long story short, out this morning and fed DS (2.5) sitting on a cushion seat in a shoe shop. A few other customers around but nobody even looking like they'd like to try on shoes. All other seats next to me completely free.

An assistant came up to me and said please can I do that somewhere else? The seats are for trying on seats only.

DS was done by this point anyway so I got up and left.

AIBU to have fed him there, and see it as an acceptable place to feed? No other people were sitting there and I wasn't preventing anyone from sitting next to us in the mny other seats avaible Confused

OP posts:
Cocomobile · 18/02/2020 02:29

And it’s quite sad that you think breastfeeding providing comfort to a child is disturbing. I’m genuinely sad for you that you are so uncomfortable about breastfeeding. That you have sexualised breasts so much that you need to compartmentalise their function so that it’s completely black and white (purely for food, full stop).

Cocomobile · 18/02/2020 02:31

That last post was for you @HavenDilemma

napmeistergeneral · 18/02/2020 03:02

Jesus christ. Still all of the judgment on this thread. Breastfeeding a 2.5 year old is normal and natural and healthy ffs. Particular shout out to @Dividingthementalload for this utterly vile comment. I have to wonder what kind of internalised misogyny is going on for you to say this sort of thing.
"Ask yourself: are you doing it for him or for the easy pacification it brings/personal gratification you get from him continuing to physically need you waaaaaay past the point when breast milk is needed for nutrition in a western developed country."

DianaT1969 · 18/02/2020 03:03

I haven't read the whole thread, but you didn't seem to answer everyone who queried why your toddler couldn't be given a cuddle and a snack instead, or why you didn't return to your car. For those saying it's a public place, a shoe shop is still private property with sales targets to meet for staff wages and overheads. Staff may be on commission. It isn't public seating.
Are you trying to get in the Daily Fai with a sad face?l

napmeistergeneral · 18/02/2020 03:09

@havedilemma
Hmm Breast feeding should not be about 'comfort' and that is actually quite disturbing.....

Please so elaborate! If breastfeeding is not "about" comfort why pray do dummies help to pacify babies and infants? Is a dummy "disturbing"?

Bluerussian · 18/02/2020 03:09

Gordon Bennett, most kids of his age go into restaurants and eat proper meals with their parents, wouldn't even think of having a feed from the breast (or a bottle); what's more, the mother wouldn't be wanting to do it. We know some women feed their children until they are three but most don't, for those who do it's usually a bedtime feed.

If you were planning on looking at and possibly buying shoes, it doesn't seem like a bad thing to feed a baby sitting down in a shoe shop but your son is not a young baby any more.

Nofoolfornoone · 18/02/2020 03:13

I’m sorry you have faced some real negative judgements on here just for doing what’s best for your child

mnthrowaway202020 · 18/02/2020 03:23

I would have thought that your car would be more comfortable because it’s familiar, private etc. I also can’t imagine a retail park/high street that just consists of a shoe shop where you have to drive to another retail park to find another establishment

I’m not sure if the law allows you to use sit down anywhere/everywhere and breastfeed? I’m sure retailers can refuse if there’s reasonable justification

If I were you, I’d probably ask to go somewhere private in the shop instead

HoppingPavlova · 18/02/2020 04:08

I don’t think it has anything to do with breast feeding as such. It’s the appropriateness of feeding the child (whatever, however) in that situation.

Would I go plonk myself down in a shoe shop and give a 2yo a drink from a no mess sip cup or poppa. No. Would I plonk myself down in a shoe shop and give a 2yo a banana or some crackers. No. It’s completely inappropriate to feed a 2yo in the middle of a shoe shop. Doesn’t matter what form of feeding that takes so the breastfeeding has nothing to do with the inappropriateness.

A 2yo can wait and you use a more suitable location, such as outside the shoe shop or in your car. No 2yo is going to die if they are made to wait a little bit for food or drink no matter what it is or how it is given, they will just whinge a bit, that’s life.

Supertrooper98 · 18/02/2020 04:24

I haven't rtft but there's nothing wrong with feeding a 2.5yo in public but to go to a shoe shop to do it is wrong. You don't just sit in a shop when you are not a customer.

Quiterightly · 18/02/2020 04:27

This thread is vile.
Yanbu OP. I’d make a complaint about the store person.

hibeat · 18/02/2020 05:03

A 2 and a half years old can wait. There is no need to feed him in a shop. This is not about breastfeeding. It's about acquiring manners. I breastfed 2 kids 22 and 24 months. By that time they were bottle fed/sipping cup fed actually, I would express milk when I went outside for convenience. Wanted to dress however I wanted and WORK and give them a bit of independence. They did get the breast but on my terms only. They did ask in inappropriate places. They were learning NO. I remember being told off eating a chocolate bar in a shoe shop as a teen. This topic is not about breast. IMHO.

hibeat · 18/02/2020 05:29

On the other hand the sales person has to be retrained. The law is the law. There is a reason for the law.

HoppingPavlova · 18/02/2020 06:07

hibeat I’m not completely familiar with YK law but presume it’s roughly the same as ours. A Google shows England/Wales: A business cannot discriminate against mothers who are breastfeeding a child of any age.’ and Scotland the sane up to 2yo. Is that correct?

So, theoretically a salesperson in England or Wales needs to put up with a parent plopping themselves down in the middle of a bed display in a adept store or on the shoe seat in a shoe store to feed a 15yo? If that’s the law then yes, the salesperson should be trained to acknowledge this.

Perhaps another idea is parents learn about teaching kids manners and appropriate places. As I said above no way I would have let any if mine at 2yo sit down to have a drink/food break in the middle of a department store or a shoe shop or anywhere else like that whether they be a breastfeed, a drink of water or a banana. A 2.5 yo is more than able to wait a bit for food and drink and it’s a parents job to teach them that there are certain times and places that are appropriate for certain things and turning a Dept store or shoe shop into an impromptu cafe is questionable parenting. Kids won’t explode if they hear the words ‘no’ or ‘you will have to wait until I am finished looking at the shoes’. This is not the equivalent of a baby being raised in a third world country orphanage where it leads to attachment issues. It’s parenting that teaches a child to start and have age appropriate respect for those around them and their general surrounds. This is something lacking now and I feel sorry for teachers these days who cop these kids who have been taught it’s okay to do whatever you want whenever and wherever you want.

EasterIssland · 18/02/2020 06:44

@HavenDilemma I’m asking you about breastfeeding Have you breastfeed a 1-2 yo one? Aa you’d for sure know then how long their feeds take
Also what’s disturbing with your baby being comforted by the breast ? Apart from the sexual connection we have with breasts ? When my son falls and injures himself the only way to comfort him is by breast, what’s disturbing in it?

CatteStreet · 18/02/2020 06:48

'Also, there's a rather creepy subtext around statements such as this to do with breastfeeding women almost getting off on it which totally plays into the whole idea of breasts being sexual even when they are being used to feed a child, and that women themselves are somehow sex crazed hostages to their own desires which is so messed up it would need a thesis to unravel.'

Absolutely spot on, OldHarrysGameboy. See (all on this thread) 'entitled exhibitionist', 'use your breast on a pre-schooler' (never mind the rather elastic definition of a 2.5yo as a pre-schooler), 'personal gratification'. Do you not hear yourselves, using language about breastfeeding mothers that is more usually applied to sex offenders? Angry The word 'shaming' gets thrown about rather too liberally these days, but there's a real and ugly example of it on this thread, against the OP.

God bloody forbid breasts should be about a mother making an autonomous decision to parent in the way she feels appropriate and meets her child's needs (the child also being an autonomous partner in the bf relationship - it's impossible to make a child bf) rather than about serving as sexual objects for men.

Thehop · 18/02/2020 06:49

I think you’re amazing for feeding your toddler still. I am too and it’s hard!

But I guess unless they’re ill and desperately need feeding then I wouldn’t take up space in a shop for a toddler if I wasn’t a customer I’m afraid.

CatteStreet · 18/02/2020 06:53

Oh and FGS, HoppingPavlova. Bf a tiny toddler as starting children on a path to spoilt-snowflakedom and the consequent unravelling of good old disciplinarian civilisation.

Parent of a 14yo and 12yo here, bf to 4.5 and 3 (that's years, not months) respectively and known among our friends for their engaging, thoughtful, considerate nature. And a 4yo bf to 3.5 (again years) who seems to rub along just fine in her childcare setting with the wide range of children there and their differing needs.

CatteStreet · 18/02/2020 06:55

And yes, I did bf them in public if they asked (they usually didn't, but not because they were thinking 'I must learn to postpone my gratification and show my mother as a good parent').

CatteStreet · 18/02/2020 06:55

(Sorry, last of serial posts) The advice usually given to those who want to gently stop bf at its natural term is 'don't offer, don't refuse'. FWIW.

geojojo · 18/02/2020 07:15

I'm currently feeding my 2 year old. I wouldn't do what you did but realise that's my problem as the older she has got, the more people tend to look and it makes me uncomfortable. My daughter knows this so usually doesn't ask if we are in public. I have even been approached a couple of times at a baby group (6 months ago as I do it in private now) by people saying she was too old. To be honest, I am trying to stop but she is so persistent and I am lazy (!) However I think it was rude of them to ask you to move, you could have been buying shoes afterwards, there was no reason for them to think you weren't a customer, and as you say it was empty. People don't realise that at that age it's a lot more about comfort and diffusing emotions than being hungry so not comparable to giving a snack, more to giving a dummy or a comforter.

HoppingPavlova · 18/02/2020 07:16

It’s absolutely no different to telling a child they cannot have a drink of water immediately on the spot when they want no matter where they are.

I breastfed some of mine (had one that physically couldn’t do i expressed), had absolutely no issue whatsoever feeding them in public. With a newborn that was anywhere, anytime and that may have been in the middle of the street, a Dept store or indeed a shoe shop. I would not feed an older toddler of 2.5yo wherever and whenever they demanded it. It had to be convenient for me and in an appropriate place. I also didn’t have different rules for the kids I breastfed and the one that had expressed milk. Why should I have had? The one who had expressed milk couldn’t have their drink whenever they wanted as a child. I didn’t drop everything in the middle of the street and whip out the bottle for them at that age, they had to wait for an appropriate time and place.

I certainly didn’t use the ‘don’t offer, don’t refuse’ line with a 2yo chucking a tantrum because they couldn’t have their want immediately met whether it was breast, expressed milk or water. Waiting a short period until convenient and appropriate never did any harm.

I’m also glad that your young teenagers are perfect. Get back to us in a few years on that oneGrin. Mine certainly had their moments over the years but now it’s all clear - due to denying breast, bottle, water at 3yo in a crowded street and being made to wait for 15mins. If I had of only known .....

hydeandrun · 18/02/2020 07:31

Waiting a short period until convenient and appropriate never did any harm.

nor does feeding on the spot.

why do people take so much offence? does it hurt anyone??

Original poster
Refreshed · 18/02/2020 07:59

I’m also glad that your young teenagers are perfect

I don't have any teenagers. I assume youre referring to then other thread I commented on, which I said something along the lines of ''I know some lovely teenagers''.

No teenagers of my own. But maybe mine will be a lovely teen. Everyone said the 'just you wait' comments when he was a stress free baby, yet that 4 month regression never did reach us Hmm

OP posts:
DippyAvocado · 18/02/2020 08:12

So, theoretically a salesperson in England or Wales needs to put up with a parent plopping themselves down in the middle of a bed display in a adept store or on the shoe seat in a shoe store to feed a 15yo? If that’s the law then yes, the salesperson should be trained to acknowledge this.

Yes, they do. They can offer a comfortable alternative, eg a chair somewhere else in the store, but they cannot tell the bf mother to stop, even if some of the other customers clutch their pearls at the sight of a bit of breast. And you're right, retail staff do need better training.