Tips for public feeding without cushions?

[katiegolightly]

Hi mumsnetters, I'm getting more confident feeding out and about but getting very achey arms and shoulders feeding on chairs without arms or any cushions when out and about. Any tricks of the trade for making things more comfortable?

TIA!

Hi there guessing that you maystill have a rather huge nappy bag with you when out and about I had a courier bag style one and found that using it as a sling witht hte strap round my shoulders and the bag on my knee I then rested the baby on the bag (with support to stop rolling) so the weight (albeit small) of the baby was taken and positioning and maneouvering could be done with ease.

Good luc and well done!

any of this style would have worked for what I did but I guess if you had a back pack you could just use it as a cushion.

I lounge back on comfy sofas and dd lies on my tummy. Actually now its summer, sitting in the park leaning against a tree works.
I have in the past put ds on a table in front of me, but you need to be able to get it close enough. Once ds was old enough to be sat upright on my leg it became hugely easier.

Without a sofa I can only feed dd on one side so I plan breasts before going out! And I'm a genius at seeking out sofas - local Homebase had very comfy ones just inside the door recently. :)

M&S and John Lewis have good sofa's too have sat and fed in random department stores before... ah those were the days.

I use my nappy bag as a cushion too (I have a yummy mummy one)

also when out and about i do my best to find a seat with arms... so if at a coffee shop i try and sit on a sofa-y seat rather than a normal chair, same at motorway services.

In "town" the shopping centre i go to has a breastfeeding room with a comfy breast feeding chair AND a cushion, so i feed there if im in town, and some larger mothercare stores have feeding rooms with comfy feeding rocking chairs (my nearest mother care has a bench which could not be less practical for breast feeding)

Roll up a jacket / jumper / scarf and use in place of a pillow.

Thanks ladies, perfect - I will try better sofa-hunting from now on and if in doubt, hoik out the nappy bag! (Which I also hope I will have confidence to empty slightly... it's somewhat over prepared for all manner of small but unlikely disasters!)

As for nappy bag emptying.. someone suggested to us we kept a little list over the first month to see what we had actually used from the nappy bag.
and then take out almost everything else. if you haven't used it in the first month you probably don't need it.

Ring sling

Also try sticking a foot on your buggy, if you use one. somewhere high enough to elevate your knee to rest baby on. I always imagine a classical guitar player - they have a little footrest that would be perfect for BFing. Portable too...I wonder how much they cost!

I've now got an eagle eye for a chair/stool with rungs (is that the word)? It does get easier as they get bigger and can take more of their own weight problem then is nipple flashing/twiddling/raspberry blowing in the middle of Starbucks

A guitar footrest! What a good idea for a footrest!!! And they're pretty cheap too - just had a look on Amazon here.

Love it.....