according to my mum and aunts bf is only ok if done discreatley

[robinredbreast]

how can i explain to them that it should be just as normal as ff and why should women [who dont want to] have to hide away

Wouldn't bother even trying tbh. Just feed your baby the way you want too. They don't have to look!

Doing it discreetly doesn't actually have to mean hiding away.

I never "hid" when I was feeding ... those who didn't like it took themselves away, not me. You don't have to tell them anything - just get on with feeding, and educate them by example.

There's a great thread recently where someone who is actually ff had her baby in a sling in a cafe. A customer assumed she was bf and complained to the waiting staff that it made them "uncomfortable", despite (as the OP on that thread said) "having seen not so much as a flash of breast, bra or even heard a gentle slurping sound".

Goes to show that you can't keep everyone happy. And that some people are so ready to take offence that it's really not worth the bother to worry about them.
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Before breastfeeding I felt uncomfortable seeing anybody else doing it but because I was intrigued more than anything and partly envious because I could not do it with my first child.

Now I am managing to feed my new baby I am as proud as anything that I can do it and I am feeding in public if I need to. I have tried to be discreet because I understand that not everybody likes it but it is important that we do it so that perceptions change. I sat in a department store cafe a couple of weeks ago (on my own)and fed my dd for an hour. It was really interesting but I felt as though the least welcoming were old women and middle aged women. Middle aged men were fine and teenage boys were fine (they treated it as totally normal and it was really nice when one middle aged man looked me right in the eye and smiled). Everyone else tried to turn away, choose tables away from me when the saw what I was doing or uncomfortably refused to look at me.

really interesting as you would think that women would be the most hospitable wouldn't you.