Breastfeeding comment

[PregnantAtLast]

I'm currently 2 months pregnant. Shared the good news with parents over Christmas, all lovely.

I told my mum I'd be breastfeeding when she asked. She said "Oh, will you be getting one of those shawls like your cousin had?"
(Basically to cover myself and the baby when I am feeding).

It made me feel really uncomfortable that she expects me to cover myself feeding my child in my own family home.

AIBU to push back on this and insist on feeding how I want to, or do I need to respect her wishes when I'm in her home?

That’s the sort of extreme thinking that usually gets people nowhere.

Compromise is better.

So if (as is the case with many babies) OP's baby will not feed under a cover, or OP finds it tricky to latch with a cover (again, very common), and OP's mum is not comfortable with her feeding without a cover, how do you think that relationship is going to work? You cannot schedule feeds or predict when a breastfeeding baby is going to get hungry, so the only "compromise" is that OP lets her baby go hungry, which is neglect.

The relationship will not be over because of breastfeeding, the relationship will be over because OP's Mum considers her "comfort" more important than the comfort of a newborn baby.

That is not a compromise. No one is letting a baby go hungry
A compromise would be for either the grandmother or the mother to go in a separate room while the feeding takes place.

So every time the baby gets hungry, either mum or Grandma is excluded from the social gathering? May as well have stayed at home.

And a topless woman is seen differently to a topless man

I know. Except a topless woman is actually doing something needed, whereas a man is just topless because he can be. Dont you want this to change?? Rather than just saying “Oh well let’s just go along with it?”. Change stats with us all.

Re my swimming comment I meant about men’s nipples not changing rooms. But apparently you see men’s nipples less offensive than women’s nipples because Society so it’s probably not a relevant question

OK so if you think all discomforts are valid within someone’s home, and they should get their way, do you have a line? What about racism, homophobia, feeling uncomfortable because someone has a birth mark?

I agree but I think the person with the silly nonsensical discomfort should be the one to compromise, not a baby

Well the options are

1. Mum feels uncomfortable covering up while feeding
2. Grandma feels uncomfortable in her own homeand her feelings are disrespected
3. Mum goes in another room
4. Grandma goes in another room
5. There's no relationship

I’ll ask you the same I’ve asked as others - are all discomforts valid if they happens within a person’s home? And where do you draw the line?

👏🏼 👏🏼👏🏼

Not all “discomforts” are rational or equal

Can you give me a scenario re racism and homophobia and a birthmark as that makes no sense

It’s over because the mum is a dick in this imaginary scenario.

A good compromise would be to not look

Agreed and imagine what happens with cluster feeding! I remember cluster feeding for six hours on the trot at MILs I was totally exhausted, if I was in another room it would have been miserable all round (luckily MIL isn’t a selfish weirdo so had no objections to her granddaughter having her lunch)

Well then Grandma should put her big girl pants on and get over it. Problem solved!

I think these imaginary scenarios are pointless because at the end of the day the vast majority of grandmas wouldn’t dream of being so awful as to make life even more difficult for their daughter/DIL and new grandchild simply because they, despite being a woman with breasts herself who’s given birth and done all manner of both pleasant and unpleasant things with her female anatomy, has the tolerance and maturity regarding breasts that matches that of a particularly silly 8 year old boy. I reckon these women are in the extreme minority.

The unfortunate few whose mums ARE the above, like the OP, should do nothing less than laugh at the ridiculousness of it all and make it clear “Well I ain’t coming here then, if you wanna see than baby you come to me at my convenience, but be warned - you may or may not see the side of my nipple. It’s a risk you will have to take mum.” And then granny can choose to get over her ridiculousness or she can choose to hardly see her grandchild.

It's the mother's home...

A bit of consideration wouldn't go amiss and I bet she'll soon get over it anyway

My father did!

Consideration for what exactly?

As I said I very much support breastfeeding. I don’t see women’s nipples as offensive 🙄

Yes, it would be good if things changed so breastfeeding became more commonplace. Societal change takes time. You can’t just bludgeon prople into submission because you believe they think the wrong way about this particular issue. Going NC as pp have suggested is going way too far imho. ‘They made me do it’ is rarely a good excuse.

Your swimming comment was a bit hard to follow all right !

You also don’t create change by going along with discrimination saying “Well one day things will be different”. It’s on us all to create positive change.

The going NC comments have been borne from an imaginary scenario that has taken more hold than the story in the OP 😂 but the point is, no new mum should have to go to great lengths to accommodate the discrimination of others so the sensible solution is to avoid seeing people who banish them from the room to BF or make them wear a big cloth. That could naturally progress to reduced contact and would entirely be the fault of the offended person

I also don’t understand what people mean when they say they “support breastfeeding”. Is it something we support now? It’s like saying “I support people eating breakfast”. Why must eating be supported? Why wouldn’t you support it?

On @ShesNotACowShesAFox there's plenty scenarios.

"When you come over, are you going to wear clothes/ a covering to cover your birthmark?"
"When you come over with your partner, will you just act as if you're friends and not sitting close to each other or touching/kissing one another?"
"You're not going to bring your Asian/black friend to the party are you?"

None of these would be acceptable to any reasonable person.

They mean "we don't deliberately obstruct mothers from feeding their children."

I used the term in reply to people saying I was squeamish about breastfeeding. Maybe support was the wrong word though. A huge fan maybe? Breastfed all of mine.

I think most dissenters on this thread support breastfeeding.Why wouldn't they?
But, speaking for myself, I support the mum's right to be comfortable in her own home, have her boundaries (VERY popular on MN) and not be dictated to by a visitor.
I think the pps who seemingly would be happy to not see their mother over this issue need to learn to compromise, need to learn that the world does not revolve around them and need to learn that just because someone has different views to you doesn't make them wrong.
I am sure the militant bfeeders on this thread are congratulating themselves on advocating for their baby and patting themselves on the back for making a stand on bfeeding.
You cannot force someone to change their views, no matter how right you are convinced you are, so the choice is either fall out or compromise.