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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

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Original poster

When did you first see a baby breastfeeding?

74 replies

mears · 09/02/2007 10:39

Or was it your own.

As a follow on from comments on the other thread I thought it would be interesting to know.

I was about 11 years old and used to visit our next door neighbour and help her with her 2 children (there's another thread - that doesn't happen anymore!).

I used to watch her bath the baby then sit and breastfeed him. It just looked so lovely.

My mum breastfed all five of us which included a set of twins. She was very unusual in 1963 with the twins that the consultant used to bring people to see her!

Breastfeeding was therefore the norm for me which has moulded my beliefs.

OP posts:

PinkTulips · 09/02/2007 10:43

when i was 8 when i visited my aunt 2 days after having her baby. i was sitting on her bed and she was feeding her dd and answering all my (probably very annoying in retrospect) queations about it.

saw loads of women in restaurants and my most abiding memory is of being in a market in Portugal and seeing a woman sheathed from head to toe in black but quite calmly feeding her toddler in the middle of the market

AitchTwoOh · 09/02/2007 10:44

my mum feeding my brother and sisters... lovely.
funnily enough we had an aunt who hadn't bf her children and i always felt a bit sorry for them cos it looked like a much less cosy experience.

i'm quite sure that moulded my beliefs, however when it came to the piece i couldn't exclusively BF and so it also moulded my horrendous guilt.

i do think that being a pro-BF reluctant FF-er is the worst position to be in, it is what's known in the business as an almighty head-fk...

kiskidee · 09/02/2007 10:45

i don't know cause where i am from people bf babies in public all the time. and its in the tropics where t-shirts etc are skimpy.

some american indian women don't even wear tops in their communities

NotQuiteCockney · 09/02/2007 10:46

I must have seen my mum bf my sister, she had her when I was 4, and she definately breastfed her.

But the first time I remember, I must have been mid-twenties, and a good friend had a baby, coslept, and breastfed her until she was 2.5. Just before I had DS1, my sister had a baby, and coslept and breastfed. So that was what I thought was normal.

sassy · 09/02/2007 10:50

Aged 7, my mum bf'd my baby sister.

(May have seen my aunties bfing younger cousins - probably did, come to think of it) but it passed me by.

Totally normal in our family. Surprise, surprise, I bf'd my 2 as well, ff never crossed my mind.

Miaou · 09/02/2007 10:51

I honestly don't remember. My mum breastfed my db, who was six years younger than me, so I guess I must have seen her do it but can't remember at all! I don't know if seeing other people doing it formed my opinions, but it never occurred to me not to at least try breastfeeding.

belgo · 09/02/2007 10:53

I was 7 or 8 years old. I saw a family friend breastfeeding her newborn baby in her own home, I was there playing with her older children. I remember her smiling as she was feeding.

I remember going home to my mum and saying it was very rude thing to do !

My mother seemed embarrased and told me it wasn't rude.

My next experience of bf was in Gautemala 15 years later, when I saw the local Indians breastfeeding as they worked.

Because of so little exposure to breastfeeding, I never thought I would be able to bf, I never even wanted to until I was heavily pregnant.

My mum told me that I wouldn't be able to bf because it is so hard and painful, but I was desperate to prove her wrong, and I have.

BethAndHerBrood · 09/02/2007 10:56

Never, until I did in hospital after having my first. Quite sad really. Then made to feel like a freak because I wanted to b/f, when everyone else was f/f.

WigWamBam · 09/02/2007 10:57

I was born in 1963 and my mum breastfed me. She also breastfed my two sisters, and as I was 18 when my youngest sister was born I think she was probably the first baby I saw breastfeeding. She only breastfed for three or four months until we were weaned onto solids, and then went onto formula - I'm not sure why. I believe she breastfed me and my other sister for a similar amount of time.

I know she was under pressure from a lot of people when I was born to formula feed me, because that was the fashion then. Formula was modern and easy, and the attitude was that it was a far more civilised way to feed a baby.

Breastfeeding didn't feel like the norm for me, though, because my sister was given bottles for a lot longer than she was given the breast. My mum made a big thing about us being able to help feed my sister, and I was left with the impression that breastfeeding was a bit of a pain really, something that was a bit of a sacrifice for her, and something that was best done for a short time only.

I fed for two years, so obviously my beliefs weren't influenced by my mother!

It's an interesting question you raise, mears, about whether seeing breastfeeding informs your ideas about it. My daughter is 5 now, has forgotten about breastfeeding, and she asked me the other day about ladies giving babies bottles ... when I told her that I didn't give her a bottle at all, she told me that she thought that was weird, because most mummies give their babies bottles rather than breasts. That comment really saddened me and I really hope that one day she will see women breastfeeding, and realise that it's not so weird as she now thinks.

mawbroon · 09/02/2007 11:02

I must have seen it as a child but don't remember. I do remember my Mum asking my Aunt how she was feeding the new baby and she said "good old fashioned boobs" or something like that.

The first time I saw it and thought that it might potentially be something that I might do one day was when I saw my SIL feeding her dd around 3 years ago. It seemed like as soon as the baby was finished, she wanted back on for more! I remember saying to her "so how do you get anything done then" and she laughed and said "i don't". That stuck with me (in a good way) as I lolled on the sofa for hours with DS!

ShowOfHands · 09/02/2007 11:04

You know what I've never seen anybody breastfeed. Not in rl at least. However, I am 6 months pregnant so hopefully in three months I'll see myself breastfeeding. Never really thought about it before, but I have no younger siblings, most of my friends have either ff or not fed in public and I grew up in a very rural area where you just wouldn't have encountered it.

I know that when I start bf I'll be doing it away from my family at first as I know that's what I'll feel comfortable with, but thinking about it I presume that this is due in large part to never having seen women do it in public before.

FioFio · 09/02/2007 11:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

MrsApron · 09/02/2007 11:12

8 my mum with my wee sis. Can't really remember anyone bottle feeding though so there must have more people bf than my mum.

Never ever occured to me to make a choice of feeding method. Bf all the way.

IdrisTheDragon · 09/02/2007 11:14

When my little sister was a baby (she was born when I was 7.5).

NbgsYellowFeathers · 09/02/2007 11:14

It was as an adult and I was a mens floor manager for Clarks shoes.
A lady had come in with her husband and fairly newborn baby. She just started to feed in the middle of the mens department.
I was like, yeah you go for it
The men however didnt have a clue where to look even though they were surrounded by countless walls of shoes lol.

Caligula · 09/02/2007 11:14

When I was about 15.

I was on a demo and there was a woman there who sat down to nurse her baby. I was shocked. Breasts in public! It added to my image of breastfeeding mothers as being lefty demo-going types.

Later revised my image when a Tory middle-class council candidate I was babysitting for opened the door to me with her baby at her breast. I was shocked that Tories BF their babies.

WanderingTrolley · 09/02/2007 11:23

No one in my family breastfeeds, so prob not until I started nannying, when just about every woman I worked for breastfed.

My siblings/cousins etc are not nannies, nor have any worked in childcare.

My thoughts on breastfeeding are moulded almost entirely by what i've seen and learnt as a nanny, not by my upbringing.

Having said that, I've known nannies who think negatively about breastfeeding, which I find odd.

CheesyFeet · 09/02/2007 11:28

My mum breastfed my sister who was born when I was 17, that's the first memory I have of seeing a baby being breastfed. I probably saw my brothers being bf but I don't remember.

The next one after that was my own dd. I'm sure I must have seen bf mothers and babies out and about but never noticed anything.

When dd was born my mum tried to shoo my sister and her friend (they were 13) out of the room while I fed dd - I told them to stay, I didn't want them to think there was anything wrong in doing it publicly. They were interested and had a look but the novelty soon wore off.

NadineBaggott · 09/02/2007 11:35

When I attempted and failed to feed dd (I didn't really want to do it but thought I should). I was breastfed myself but my dm made no comment whatsoever on how I fed my own dc, and she's an opinionated woman! (except to say SMA tasted vile!)

Whilst I accept that if the norm was to see women breeastfeeding all over the place I might have been more up for it (or not, who knows?) I really don't feel I've 'missed out' by not seeing women breastfeeding, it's not something that's on my mind and I don't get a warm glow or anything if I do see it, I'm just not that kind of person.

Little cutesy bunny wunny rabbits and kitty witty pussy cats don't do it for me either!

Pruni · 09/02/2007 11:36

Message withdrawn

franca70 · 09/02/2007 11:36

My next door neighbour, in 1976. My mum bf my brother for like two days, and can't remember it.
Then I don't think I gave any attention while growing up (nor did I notice pregnant women before getting pregnant myself)
Then my best friend, when she had her lovely dd in 1998.

franca70 · 09/02/2007 11:38

actually I had some sound advice from my grandmother about breastfeeding, my mum didn't have a clue. (now, of course she pretends to be an expert, after having had two breastfed grandchildren )

geekgrrl · 09/02/2007 11:40

when I was 17, saw my aunt b/f. found it terribly embarrassing!
obviously it didn't scar me for life though as I went on to b/f all my three, including tandem feeding & child-led weaning.

bogie · 09/02/2007 11:45

I never saw anyone breast feeding untill i had ds when i was 18 and i breastfed him

pelvicflawed · 09/02/2007 11:51

Can't say I remember seeing anyone bf when I was a child in the 70's think I only became aware of it as an adult and then only really think I started to notice when I started to think about having kids. I know this is really sad but I think as a child (I'm an only child so perhpas not having sisters/brothers limited my experience)I think I thought bottle feeding was the norm - all my baby dolls came with those 'magic'bottles that emptied when you turned them upside down and I'm sure SMA tins were extensively used at school for crayons (togther with Golden Virginia tobbacco tins -aahhh how I loved the smell of fresh tobbacco at the age of five!!!). My mother bottle fed me - she says that in the late 60's she had very little encouragement to BF so I grew up thinking this was the norm.

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