Breastfeeding in public - annoyed!

[nursie]

I know there is a long thread on breastfeeding in public but I thought I would start a new one as I saw something today that really annoyed me!
I am going shopping tomorrow with a friend and ds, who is 3 months old. We will likely be out for most of the day so I went onto the website for the shopping centre I am going to to find out where the Baby Changing facilites are. There are several, which is good, but I was shocked to read a note that said ' There are Breast Feeding facilites in the public toilets.' Oh great, so if I want to feed my baby I'm expected to go and sit in the toilets on my own for half an hour???
I'm fully intending on feeding ds when my friend and I have our lunch, and although I recognise that some women may not want to feed in public, the note did rather give me the impression that feeding in public is not ' the done thing'.
Can somebody reassure me that attitudes to feeding in public are gradually changing?

BTW, the 'purpose' is feeding. Do you alway hide away somewhere discreet while eating lunch in case you offend someone? I doubt it!

this topic gets me really, really angry and don't even get me started on that bloody Ann Diamond woman.

It's natural, normal, you are feeding a child. It makes me so mad that anyone should think it was 'wrong' or 'distasteful' and I don't see why it should be done in a separate room. How is breastfeeding ever going to increase if women are shunted off into 'discrete' rooms and it's therefore taken out of everyday social interaction. Grrr...

Quite Aloha, Prufrock and Pimpernel. There is NO moral obligation not to ram it down people's throats IMO. It's normal, natural, it's what breasts ARE FOR! The sooner men remember that before making comments about discretion etc the better.

Eh? Where does Ann Diamond come in to this?

No way am I prepared to ram breastfeeding down someone's throat. If I'd thought that the only way to breastfeed was to make a huge public display I would have bottle fed.

I would be delighted if someone had come up to me and said that they hadn't realised I was feeding my baby. I think that far more women would breastfeed if they realised it wasn't a "get your tits out" activity and could be done in public without anyone noticing. Of course, how they'd notice this in the first place is tricky...

Just go for it! I fed DD everywhere (as she was permanently hungry)...sometimes I used a shawl and sometimes I didnt. I nearly always faced away from the rest of the room though so maybe I was a little self conscious although I dont like to admit it! I had no trouble at all with other people in fact more often than not people would come over and comment on how lovely it was to see a bf baby for a change. people gave me the most wonderful smiles as well.

We recently went to Italy on holiday and the Italians just LOVE to see babies being bf in fact I couldnt even see any formula for sale in the super markets. they were fantastic and I do remember being in one particular cafe trying to feed and being surrounded by about 20 waiters, waitresses and kitchen staff cooing over her and gesticulating about how wonderful bfing was !! Can you imagine that in England!!!

Anyway, just ignore what everyone else thinks...nobody seems to look twice if you snog in public but this bfing in public seems to be an issue with some. I dont get it! Do what you want and enjoy it!

Dadslib - what do you mean by discretely? Do you mean 'so people don't notice that you're feeding' or 'so people can't see your breasts'?

If the former ...
I don't eat 'discretely' in public. I don't bottle-feed or solids-feed my baby 'discretely' either. I therefore don't see why I should breastfeed 'discretely'.

If the later, well actually, I don't really want anyone to see my breasts either, but like most people breastfeeing you'd have to look jolly hard to see them, and you shouldn't really be doing that!

If people don't want to see your tits, then they can just stop looking at you so you can't be offending anyone, as why don't they just turn away?

In summer some women go topless on the beach just because they want to get a better tan so what's wrong with exposing a bit of flesh to feed your baby (which is slightly more important than going brown!).

What I thought of once, which sounds a bit weird but think about it, is this; If you breastfeed, the chances are your child will get less allergies and illnesses. If they are well, when they start working, they'll take less days off sick. The more they're at work, the more they earn. The more they earn, the more the government take in NI. And what the government take in NI actually goes to pay for the pensions of current OAPS - who will be the people now disapproving of you breastfeeding in public!

Ok, now you can tell I haven't had my lunch yet!!! Starting to go mad!!! Don't worry, not starving myself, just waiting to go to MIL's for a barbecue. I'm practising the advice I keep hearing of don't cook for yourself when you have a baby, let everyone else do it for you!!! Yesterday it was my sister and BIL, the day before it was the people at McDonalds!!!

fururity - Ann Diamond is often quoted / interviewed about iher belief that breastfeeding should be done in secret and definitely not in public. As I understand it, she agrees with breastfeeding but things it is not 'appropriate' to do it in public.

Caitlin Moran had a great article in Junior Pregnancy & Baby a few issues back, pointing out that most people like to see a happy baby, a nice pair of tits and a good meal, and breastfeeding combines them all...

I don't feel I have a moral obligation to feed my baby 'discreetly' at all. Or even a social one. I do admit I get embarrassed when jets of milk shoot across the room, and I do try and conceal those, but otherwise I don't see why on earth I should shut myself into some sort of lactation purdah rather than staying out in the world.

KatieRocket, if true that is SO bizarre, particularly because her son died of cot death and the protective effect of breastfeeding is well known.

lets e mail her - a mass protest

How an earth do you breast feed provocatively????

Would have got up and waggled them and sprayed anyone who said that to me now I actually have confidence!! Although have small boobs with no milk now cause DD is 3!!

my theory - is that if I cant see them no one else can too.

aloha - I know. I wouldn't believe it if I'd have just read it but I saw her on 'The Wright Stuff' on channel 5. It was a few months ago but they were having a discussion about breastfeeding in public (it was after that female MP had been stopped from breastfeeding in the chamber0. Anyway she was very pro-breastfeeding but was adamant that it should not be done in public - it really was so annoying. SHe just kept saying that she thought it was a '"beautiful, but private thing between a child and her mother"

aloha - I know. I wouldn't believe it if I'd have just read it but I saw her on 'The Wright Stuff' on channel 5. It was a few months ago but they were having a discussion about breastfeeding in public (it was after that female MP had been stopped from breastfeeding in the chamber0. Anyway she was very pro-breastfeeding but was adamant that it should not be done in public - it really was so annoying. SHe just kept saying that she thought it was a '"beautiful, but private thing between a child and her mother" and that she didn't think it was right that women should do it in public places.

Boe
Ks -that is really outrageous - what did your BF say to them?

Hey, I want to know how to do it provocatively! What with being such a postnatal sex goddess at the moment, of course...

Message withdrawn

I do sort of agree that bf is a private thing between mother and baby - my most enjoyable bf's were always when dd and I were cuddled up on our bed with lights low and a horlicks to hand. I didn't bf in public because I particularly enjoyed doing so, but I had no problem with it. OK so a public bf is not the same special, relaxing and bonding experinec that it can be in private, but as I bf for 11 months there was no way I was putting my life on hold so that I could only ever bf in private.
I think the attitude that we should somehow feel apologetic for having to bf in public is one of the main reasons more people don't do it. Nobody is forcing AD to get her tits out - but it is incredibly unempowering of her to suggest that women who do so are wrong, or for anybody to ask us to do it so that no one notices, as if it's behaviour we should be ashamed of.

I don't think most women do retreat upstairs dadslib - I don't. I figure if somebody has come to my house, I should be able to do anything I want whilst they are there. I have bf in front of my dad, FIL, male and female friends. I even bf in front of my husbands boss.
Me breastfeeding is not in anyway a sexual act - so why on earth should I have to feel embarrassed about doing it in front of anybody?

here, here prufrock.
dadslib your comment "be controversial if you like, but I don't think you further the breast feeding cause by doing so, you may indeed put off less confident women" is nonsense. We're not doing it to be controversial - we're doing it because its normal.

and we pee in individual cubicles because that's the way female toilets are built!!!