Had to leave Costa as breastfeeding was taking too long

[CalmFawn]

Visited Costa last week with my 10 day old baby. Went to meet my best friend and it was my first outing without my husband ( so a bit nervous!)

Sat down and we both ordered a coffee and a cake. Had a good chat and she held baby etc. about 40 mins into seating, I started to breastfeed baby. Coffee was nearly gone but cakes hadn’t been eaten yet. A member of staff came over and demanded I stop feeding my baby as it was ‘too time consuming’ and we’ve been sat here for too long and it was a busy period so we need to leave. We pointed out there were over 10 empty tables and we still had cake but she ignored us and held the door open for us to leave. I was so upset and embarrassed I just stopped feeding baby and rushed out.

whilst reflecting over the weekend I wish I had had said something to her but worried I’ve missed some time frame that Costa allow and overran. Was she right to ask us to leave? Or was she in the wrong?

40 minutes for a coffee and cake isn’t hogging a table, especially if there are other tables free.

I had a couple of uncomfortable experiences while breastfeeding out and about, but nothing like this. It sounds as if the staff member had a problem with you breastfeeding as opposed to her claim that you were taking too long. It’s all a bit strange. Ah well, you have sent an email. All you can do is wait for the response. It will be very interesting to hear what they have to say.

So you just left your cake there?

I've been in coffee shops where people buy one drink, plug in their laptop, phone and charger , spread out and practically camp there for the day!

But what about the cake? I mean CAKE!!!

It was 40 minutes, not four hours.

Yes she has a right to ask you to leave her property she is trying to sell and not breastfeed on it. It’s completely different to a cafe.

Wow, you sound quite entitled!
Of course you can’t go and sit on someone’s property, to breastfeed or not. I can’t believe she had to tell you to make a move.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/baby/breastfeeding-and-bottle-feeding/breastfeeding/breastfeeding-in-public/

Hope this helps.

Surely to god you'd know such stuff before you had a baby?
Have you never looked in a newspaper, opened a magazine article, read MN? The discussion on breastfeeding is writ large, YABU to have 'ignoed' this.
It's a worry.

That's awful. She clearly made you leave because the breastfeeding made her uncomfortable. I mean, there were ten empty tables!

I'd go back there and complain to the manager. You have a legal right to breastfeed in public.

Especially at Costa prrices!! You have to remortgage your house, so no way would I be leaving that...

How could she be hogging a table when there were ten others free?

Email their social media team and press inbox - you’ll get a quicker reply. Cannot believe they did that.

I’ve never been booted out a Costa and I regularly plonk myself down with a laptop and work for a few hours. If this is true I’d write a scathing complaint.

Regarding the cake, sadly I did just leave it there

really annoyed at myself for leaving now but was really embarrassed at the time so didn’t really give myself time to think. I just left as quickly as I could.

hopefully will get a reply from them soon

This is all ridiculous. You still had what you had bought in the cafe in front of you uneaten and were asked to leave because you were taking too long?

Not to mention why hadn't you eaten, or at least started the cake? You have to get used to be able to eat over the top of the baby's head.

I would say I bf all my dc and in many a coffee shop, no one was ever rude and quite often a member a staff would bring a glass of water ( unasked) in addition to the drink I’d bought in case I needed it. Happened so often I assumed there had been training given. I hope it doesn’t put you off feeding when out and about.

Put the breastfeeding aside. You haven’t eaten your cake. So it’s not like you’d been sitting there with empty cups for hours, blocking customers with drink. You had not finished!

The only reason I hadn’t eaten it yet is because we were too busy chatting. I hadn’t seen her for a few months so that cake got kind of forgotten for the first half an hour.

poor baby is generally covered in crumbs from me eating over her so that’s not an issue 😂.

"A member of staff came over and demanded I stop feeding my baby as it was ‘too time consuming’

If this is genuine then Costa are likely to apologise and suggest staff training as I believe they are meant to be a breast feeding friendly cafe (at least the ones where I am are). Even if the staff member disagreed with it, the company itself overall is meant to be supportive of new mums (the one near me helps carry drinks over if mum is holding a baby for example).
The Costa near me though is always busy so I'm that sense I could see them being irritated if it appeared people were chatting and not eating (let's focus on the bit beforehand of passing the baby around), but as there were supposedly empty tables I don't see that making you hurry was appropriate, especially as you were then feeding the baby. Not sure why your friend didn't speak up for you?

At 10 days postpartum I'd have felt flustered and embarrassed and left too. Sorry this happened.

It makes a good case for avoiding Costa and giving business elsewhere. I’m sure this is the second thread I’ve read where this has happened at a Costa! OP I’m so sorry they made you feel like you had to leave and made you feel uncomfortable. No one can forcibly remove you so dig in next time if you can but appreciate so awkward.

Interesting you use DFS as an example, I was positively encouraged to pick a sofa to feed my baby in there once!