Bottle feeding mum asked to leave breast feeding cafe

[Dawnybabe]

In my local paper, the Eastern Daily Press, of Norfolk, they ran a story about a mum who had, through a friend, been asked by a member of staff at a PCT run breast feeding cafe not to return because she had bottle fed her four month old son. Please tell me I'm not the only one absolutely incandescant with rage over this? Apparently she had a medical reason for bottle feeding as well. Aren't the staff being as bigoted as the general public who force the need for a breast feeding cafe in the first place? Surely the attitude should be that you are safe to feed there however you like without any prejudice? There is enough pressure and guilt forced on bottle feeding mums as it is without staff who should know better joining in the witch hunt.

of course they bloody weren't! but you'd be surprised, clearly, to hear the sometimes women who are able to bf aren't sensitive to the fact that some can't and feel terrible about it.
but you know what, we suck it up. we sympathise with the burst nipples and the leaky breasts, because they're having a hard time but inside we're envious of their every ailment. because at the end of the day they're giving their chld the best possible start in life and we, well, we're giving our child the second best start. which when you have a brand new perfect baby doesn't feel so great, let me tell you.
i really find it hard to believe that you'd all have given up bfing at the sight of one bottle... you must have found the rest of RL very difficult indeed. but you all seem to have managed somehow...

thing is,i'm not arguing for a free-for-all, it's not a cafe, it's a bfing support group.

but a like-minded pro-bfing bottle feeder is not the enemy and shouldn't have been quizzed as to her intentions for the future. if they didn't want her there in the first place then i'm quite sure she was made sufficiently unwelcome as to have no wish to return. it really doesn't take much. ]

despite my being told that i was very welcome to go to my local bfing group i couldn't bear bringing out my bottle and only went a few times. i got my counselling one-to-one and over the phone, which was probably a less cost-efficient way than me turning up at the bfing group and feeling okay about what was happening to me.

some of that counselling was directly related to the poor bfing support i'd endured, writing it all down and demanding a peer review so that other women would not suffer as i had done. had the bfing support counsellors taken an interest in the 'lip service' that the woman in question had been shown at the hospital with regards to her bfing, they may have been able to encourage her to complain and make things better for more women in the area than they could ever hope to reach in a small bfing cafe.

for smallwhitecat, it is the pits, isn't it?

ach, me too. but this thread had rattled it all up again for me... it was an utterl traumatic period in my life.

I just read back through this, and ElkeDee's reason for going to bf group and bottlefeeding. I am so sorry to hear that you didn't get help. My second baby was in SCBU and I wanted to bf. I couldn't see him for ages and then was aked what milk he wanted. I was given a choice of SMA and something else as he was hungry. The ward had only three pumps between all of us, and it took ages before they 'let' me feed him myself. Through a drip, with expressed milk, but it would have been so easy to carry on with the bottled stuff. I was lucky - dh went off and bought a pump and I'd already fed one. Keep trying - surely 8 weeks is early still if you want to find help?

To me it sounds as if these so called cafes need advertising in a totoally different ways. They should not be called cafes at all. Call them what they are - a support group for breast feeding mums only. That way there is no vagueness as to what they are and who is allowed to attend.

at 8 weeks your window of opportunity for getting our yield up is pretty much snookered. as far as i'm aware. i was on domperidone and expressing every two hours on a medical machine at 6 weeks to try to kick-start my yield (it worked a wee bit) but the bfc said that it was pretty late in the game to make a big difference. however, everyone's different so it'd be worth asking about.

I find it a bit strange that a woman who is clearly upset about being unable to breastfeed would want to surround herself with breastfeeding mothers. Would that not rake up horrendous feelings? I've never been to a breastfeeding cafe but always assumed they were there as a practical support system for women who are bfing, where women can sort out problems, moan to each other about minor niggles and openly breastfeed without being worried that old/young git/gitess in the corner won't stare/tut/complain to owner of cafe. I've assumed they're NOT there to provide information for a person who is not currently breastfeeding in any form. Surely antenatal classes etc are the place for that? And from my experience, HVs are far more knowledgable about ffing than bfing so there is prob less of a need for special support groups.

In general I'm all for ff and bfers not segregating themselves but when it comes to practical everyday problems, what advice can a bfer give a ffer and vice versa? I never bother looking at ff problem threads because I can contribute nothing to them and gain nothing from them and prob naively would assume that a ff would feel the same about a bf cafe.

BTW lovely to see you back Hunker.

it would feel crummy indeed, but what might feel even crummier is having to go home after your baby massage class while your pals (some of whom might need a bit of help with bfing) all dance into the bfing cafe.
i'm really shocked that this is so difficult to understand. certainly they were not sensitive taking her there, that can't be disputed. and why can't a failed bfer encourage someone wobbling with bfing? wouldn't the sight of someone fucking around with bottles and sterilisers and cups of boiling water to heat things up in make you think 'i'm really going to try to crack this 'lift up the jumper' method'?

in fact, PARP. this is really getting me pissed off now. why would a 'young git-ess' want to go to a bfing cafe? let them have all the other cafes in the world. this woman had wanted to bf and couldn't, the poor cow. no reason for her to be ostracised from her social group.

Aitch, I'm talking about git/gitess as in people who disapprove of women breastfeeding in public - why on earth would they be at a bfing cafe!? And I genuinely don't see how a failed (hate that word because to me it's always implied 'didn't put in enough effort')bfer would help a person struggling with bf (except to say as sometimes is seen on here 'don't worry, ff isn't the end of the world') Seeing people deal with bfing may well help women who 'failed' at bfing succeed with a second child but that is surely not the purpose of bfing cafes, they are to deal with the problems of breastfeeding women in the here and now.

And there are places to go to mix with other mums and get advice - I go to an under ones club run by the NHS which is supervised by a HV who specialises in bfing issues but everyone is welcome.

I'm really sorry if I've upset you, I really did not mean to but I do not believe that the woman in the article was justified in going to the press about the situation.

well exactly, manic. so we can assume that she was pro-bfing, not a young git-ess. so shy treat her like she's the enemy?
i know i've helped wobbly bfers to keep goiing, with my tales of sterilising woe. and i am a 'failed' bfer, without a doubt.

I don't think she's the enemy (I actually wasn't referring to her when I typed 'git', I meant anti-breastfeeding-in-public bigots) although if I was a bfing mother who'd received wonderful support at the group in Norwich I'd be slightly peed off that this woman was slagging off something so precious to me in the local press.

And you may be a 'failed' bfer (although I still maintain you're not, you're just someone for whom it didn't work out) but you are a successful BLWer which is something I'd kill for at the moment.

Will go before I accidentally upset you again.

i knew you weren't referring to her, btw, that's what i meant. if she did disapporve she deffo wouldn't have gone with her pals. and it's really not you who's upset me, it's the whole thing. you just came along at the end. and i'm not even upset, per se, i just have some insight into how crushed and mortified this woman probably is.
btw, i wouldn't assume that she got on the phone to the papers... local papers are funny, there's just as much chance that she told her next-door-neighbour who's brother's wife works there, iykwim? the minute any local paper gets the opportunity to do a daily mail style rant they're all over it, cos they need to sell some papers.

and i am a failed bfer. time was it would have killed me to say it but i deffo am. tried and failed. tried harder than most, in fact... see you on the weaning threads, remember parenting's just for one untile they're twenty-one!

"aloha, what if someone had brought their child who had different problems (say... something like being blind or deaf?) because she'd met other parents at an SN meet-up in a soft play area?"
Er, but this was not just a social. It was part of our children's physio, for their specific difficulties. Set up and funded for that purpose.
You want a social, go to cafe, go to softplay, go to the park. Don't expect a charity to do it for you.
This was a charity event btw, staffed by volunteers for a specific reason to do with trying to help people struggling with breastfeeding. If people are there just for a free coffee, or a free go of the equipment, then yes, of course it should be gently explained to them that this is not the right place for them. I really don't get why that is so hard to understand.
Lots of people feel isolated and miserable for all sorts of reasons after having a child but if they turned up at an autism support group, for example, just for a coffee, that would really, really piss me off.
I'm sure lots of people would really benefit from the nice massages and free hairdressing offered on the NHS to cancer patients, but we can't all waltz in demanding them, even if your friend with cancer is having one.
I think people need to realise, this is not a right. People have given up a lot to train as bf counsellors, this is a charity and it is funded by the local health trust. It's not starbucks.

well, seeing as we're using the impolite er...

er, women who go to bfing support groups do not have to be experiencing bfing difficulties, do they? lactating or considering lactating is really the requirement for admission even by your own strict terms.

therefore not everyone is accessing the bfc services, some are there for social reasons and to get the support of other mums in continuing bfing. at my group, the ratio of old lags to new mums was 50/50.

that's why they hand out the biscuits, that's why they give you a coffee, and that's why the bfing counsellor should say 'please ask me if you need any help' not 'do not darken our door again with that bottle.' it's supposed to be enjoyable and social.

d'you know i've never recognised the whole bfing mafia thing that other people have talked about on here, presumably because my own bfing counsellor (once i finally got to her) was so enlightened, but i'm seeing it now, really i am. which is a HUGE thing to say on here, i'm aware of that. but to think that any of the women at that group thought about me in the way that you are talking... 'using up a seat', fgs.

if the bfcs of norwich think they acted correctly, they should get a kick up the arse. what that woman went through could (had they used her experience to change how the hospital acts) potentially have helped more women and their children than they could with a cup of coffee, a penguin biscuit and a place to avoid bottle feeders.

mine did. my experience changed inter-hospital policies. and i'd have wept and wept all the way home had i been excluded from a bfing support group when i was as much in need of support as anyone else.

Haven't read the whole thread, so don't know if this has been mentioned...

but what if this had been a bottlefeeding cafe,

and a breastfeeding mum went in there

What would the reaction have been?

If the bf mum got thrown out, then how is this different?

Of course though, in a bottlefeeding cafe, a bf mum shouldn't be thrown out, and neither in breastfeeding cafe should a bottle feeding mum be thrown out.

This is a really sad reflection on all mums, and all babies.

Aloha, you are spot on. The rest of you are insane. God I am so sick of the obsession with 'entitlement' and hysterical bleating about discrimination. Get a grip.

oh, right. good point, chocolate, well made. and pmsl at 'hysterical'. definitely the ff woman shouldn't have been treated with kindness by the professionals, they're only there to care for the good mummies who are managing to bf. one fucking woma nout of ten, and out of heaven knows how many else bfing.
good one, though, it'll put the fear of god into anyone in norwich who goes to that cafe and isn't managing to crack it. good that they know they'll be chucked out of their social circle if they fuck it up.

Oh get real. I've had enough difficulties with breastfeeding and been to enough breastfeeding support groups over the years to know full well that anyone who is genuinely seeking advice and suppprt re bf would be treated with nothing but kindness and support. Obviously I don't know the full details of the case but I'd be willing to bet that the woman concerned was there for a free coffee with her mates and made it clear she wasn't interested in bf or on taking advantage of the services and support on offer.

did you read the story? she'd tried to bf and got bad support from the hospital and she was gutted about it. and seriously, fuck off with your 'get real'.