Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 ··· 12 13 14 ··· 18 19

Original poster

To think perhaps this wasn't the most appropriate way to bf baby in a public place?

464 replies

lollipopz · 27/02/2009 14:29

OK I am usually all for breast feeding have breast fed all 3 of my dcs and if they were hungry in restraunt on train etc I would cover and feed them, however this shocked me.
Was in supermarket last night with 2 dds aged 5 and 7. Dds had nipped off to pick up some juice when dd1 rushed up to me with a bright red face and ushered my to the next aisle. There was a woman standing with her shirt unbuttoned feeding a baby who was sat upright in a trolley so every one that walked by could see exactly what she was doing and also had a clear view of her other boob that was hanging out her bra . Not only that the baby must have been about 7 or 8 months and was straining to reach as she sort of crouched to it's level.
Surely this is not the best way and she could have left her trolley and went into the baby room she didn't have that much stuff in there any way.

OP posts:

tumtumtetum · 27/02/2009 22:21

Well then we should be able to all walk around naked, from childhood through puberty to aludthood and old age, which would be fine, but in our culture it's normal to cover the sexual bits after puberty.

Breasts, like penises and vaginas, have more than one function. And one of them is sexual.

Personally I don't really give a monkies about people breastfeeding in public, but I can see why people may be perturbed at people getting both breasts out to do so when one would suffice. (Which is the principle here - and something I have heard of before).

If we're all for women and girls showing their breasts in public all the time then obviously both out for BF is perfectly alright.

If it's not fine for all women to walk around with their breasts out then it's OK to suggest that when women BF they only take out the one they are using for feeding at the time. Seems OK to me.

Apart from anything else you might end up with a big puddle from the one you weren't feeding from which could be a slip hazard

AitchTwoOh · 27/02/2009 22:24

was she like this?
i don't think that child is 8 months!

Cathpot · 27/02/2009 22:26

When I was in AAAFFRICA, (drawls over cigarette and accepts another G and T),

women breast fed everywhere, doing all manner of day to day tasks. 2 years in I was utterly immune to any kind of surprise, even when a woman sitting with me at the bus stop literally unfurled a bosom and handed it to a toddler as he pottered around her.

Of course in the same area you could knock a man off his bike with the surprise of seeing a woman in shorts. It's what you're used to isn't it.

It will get progressively less shocking if as I am sure we all hope, breast feeding gets progressively more normal.

tumtumtetum · 27/02/2009 22:27

No no, both breasts out, one with child attached.... It's the juxtaposition of the trolley and what can only have been uncomfortableness that bothers me. She will have her back done in if she's not careful. If I had tried to do it I would have had my tit torn off when I tried to move forward. Logistically it just sounds really tricky.

Horton · 27/02/2009 22:27

ARgh, argh, argh. Have you breasty people Read the Thread? She was not walking around with both her breasts on full display. One breast was in the baby's mouth. The other was insufficently covered by her bra. Perhaps we should start a campaign for better bras?

Divineintervention · 27/02/2009 22:28

Wow, I don't think OP would have posted if the mother was crossed legged on the floor.

wastingmyeducation · 27/02/2009 22:28

In my crapper nursing bra, my right boob often hangs more out of it than in. I try not to expose too much of my lardy voluptuous self, but if I do - so what?

Noone's talking about walking round naked, just not making a big deal if someone has a bit more flesh on show, when breastfeeding.

Anywhere, any time and any how I say!

AitchTwoOh · 27/02/2009 22:30

i think thiswoman may even have her tits out church

tumtumtetum · 27/02/2009 22:30

Well I read the first half or so then went somewhere a bit less combative for a bit

Assume the breast out thing was clarified at a later point.

Vast apologies to all for not keeping up.

So if she didn't have her other breast out as well then what's the problem? Apart from it sounding jolly uncomfortable...

MrsMerryHenry · 27/02/2009 22:31

tumtum - hilarious idea of p3 displaying row upon row of knees!

Horton - they were very much on display - have you read the OP?

AitchTwoOh · 27/02/2009 22:32

presumably she was shorter than you, tumtetum?

as well as forrin.

Divineintervention · 27/02/2009 22:33

It's too cold for us to bf walking around the place, bf doesn't even work well if the breast is cold. We are not African, we are not French, we are British which at the moment means it's more likely a girl will want to pose on page 3 than bf (well some parts of our society anyway). I think nothing of women bf wherever and whenever they like, I recently fed my dc in a vestry at a christening, in a restaurant standing, walking and sitting with a male friend but would not push a trolley and other people's comfort zones by having my breasts on display and/or stretched over a trolley.

AitchTwoOh · 27/02/2009 22:33

mrs mh, not according to lollipopz.

Horton · 27/02/2009 22:34

Have you read the clarification later in the thread, Henry?!

But yes, the breast out thing was revealed (see what I did there?) to be less a breast out than a breast that was trying to stay in but couldn't.

wastingmyeducation · 27/02/2009 22:35

You have to push people's comfort zones in order to change attitudes.

jellybeans · 27/02/2009 22:36

'There really is no need for getting your tits out in public'

Is that because breasts are sexualised in our culture? People in other societies don't bat an eyelid at a naked breast but here it's OK for mens pleasure (or womens degradation) for example on page 3, but not for babies which they are actually for.

Cathpot · 27/02/2009 22:37

I did try and breast feed DD2 whilst watching a stage performance of 'Brum'.

It was hugely and unpredicably noisy, with lots of random bangs and flashes of light.

Every time she latched on some stage effect would startled her off in a wild attention inducing flailing movement. For a considerable period of time I was just a woman in the theatre with her boob out.

MrsMerryHenry · 27/02/2009 22:37

wasting - here, here, bfing anytime, anywhere - I just don't see why it should be such create such a hoo-ha that not everyone wants breasts on display. And bfing is definitely not the issue here. I think it's more important, for example, to argue about companies sneaking around the maternity laws to sack women once they've had their babies (I know at least one company that's done this in rather large numbers). Choose your battles.

biskybat · 27/02/2009 22:37

Hey variety is the spice of life...it would be dull if we all did things the same way.

MrsMerryHenry · 27/02/2009 22:38

Horton - I must have missed that clarification.

MrsMerryHenry · 27/02/2009 22:39

Jellybeans - people in those 'other cultures' you mentioned do bat an eyelid, at things that wouldn't bother us.

wastingmyeducation · 27/02/2009 22:40

But this isn't a battle, there's no effort required other than a little 'brazenness'.

Dalrymps · 27/02/2009 22:41

'bf doesn't even work well if the breast is cold'

Can we have proof of this please?

tumtumtetum · 27/02/2009 22:42

aitch I am teensy (upwards, not outwards ). I'm sure there was something about the woman having to bend to lower her nipple far enough for the child to get at it. Ouch. My back was screwed enough when DD was that age as it was...

I just keep thinking, what happened when she pushed the trolley? Without utter co-ordination and the child's co-operation it could have been very sore indeed. I keep getting a sympathetic yanking feeling in my breasts whenever i think about it.

Which makes me think this wasn't a one-off - she had been practicing. Maybe she started in the couscous aisle and worked herself up to juice n crisps. Maybe there is an extreme BF competition on at the moment. Who knows?

Original poster

lollipopz · 27/02/2009 22:43

Here here Aitch! Glad you are bringing some light relief to this thread it needs it!

OP posts:

Flip

1 2 ··· 12 13 14 ··· 18 19