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.

i agree with smallwhitecat and twofalls. we're not making particuarly strident points, i don't think there's any need for all the 'fgs', frances. and if you look at the criteria posted below for the babycafe charity, family members, partners and supporters of bfers as well as women thinking about bfing can attend. she may have fallen into at least two of these categories. i think your view is very unenlightend, tbh. glad that my bfc took a longer view.

dunno, local paper. could have been someone spoke to someone who lives next door to someone whose cousin's a journo on the local rag, that's all.

Do you think that young childless women who aren't pregnant should be allowed to get subsidised tea and coffee? My young 18 year old neighbour might fancy a cheap coffee. She has had a lot of stress with her A-levels lately and well... she has a boyfriend and ... she might have a baby in the next ten years. The poor thing is feeling fairly isolated at the moment because her mum has moved away from her.

As I understand most breastfeeding cafes are charties or run by the nhs for a particular group of people.

Would you expect a cancer charity to provide a free trip to disney land for 100% healthy family just because you can't afford it?

Some bottlefeeders need to get over their issues. If they are having serious trouble then they need to seek medical help.

th is the oddest thread
a cra artulce in a local rag
no one knows the other side of the story
and yet it goes ON and ON

Just to keep all you genuinely concerned mners up to date, the cafe has issued a statement saying that all bottlefeeding mums are welcome provided they don't feed their baby in front of breast feeding mums. Um, cos we don't know you can use a bottle really.

no on e knows if she had even expressed breast milk

Um. Someone posted further down the thread that she went to a breastfeeding cafe after the birth of her daughter. She was bottlefeeding then, but successfully re-established breastfeeding. I think a "get over your issues" response would have been less than helpful with that

"all bottlefeeding mums are welcome provided they don't feed their baby in front of breast feeding mums."

Now that can't be right surely?!

Thats so ridiculous, they make it sound like she was swearing or something.

The cafe organisers are being silly.

frances, really... you're being unreasonably bitchy about this. all we're saying is that they needn't have got a message to her saying that it wasn't the place for bottle-feeders, she'd likely have got the message over a visit or two.

i think there is a fair amount of detail in the first story by the way. the woman is quoted along the lines of having been desperate to bf, but with a sick child and the hospital only paying lip service to bfing support she'd failed and was unhappy about it. something like that anyway.

on that basis we can assume that she's not a rabid anti-bfer, that she feels that she has more in common with bfers than ffers and that she didn't need any bfing advice so wouldn't have been taking up any precious resources. so where's the harm in letting her stick around for a week or two while her friend gets bfing support?

"all bottlefeeding mums are welcome provided they don't feed their baby in front of breast feeding mums."

Snort LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now please this is just going waaaay too far. Surely no one else is going to post in defense of these weirdos?

I don't think they actually said that

Those of you who think it is some kind of mafia thing to ask women who are bottle feeding not to do so at a breastfeeding support group, are either very unreasonable yourselves or have not fully considered the implications of it.

For some women, the BF support group is literally the only place they feel secure and supported when bf. In the first six weeks with my DS, it was almost literally the only place I felt happy feeding him, because I wasn't tense about something going wrong - I knew if it did, someone competent would help me sort it out. Nearly all the rest of the time, I felt miserable and near to hysteria.

I had a very supportive partner, friends, family and HV. And yet the only place I felt really relaxed about feeding, was the BF support group. Many women who BF have uncertain partners, unsupportive family members and downright sabotaging HV's. Can you imagine how much more important the BF support group is to them?

And then imagine how someone who is feeling hysterical and frustrated and angry and helpless about how awful the whole bloody breastfeeding nightmare is, might perceive someone sitting there calmly and to the outside eye, easily, bottle feeding her baby, in the one environment where she is entitled to feel supported and motivated.

How can the BFC possibly allow the positive, supportive, motivating atmosphere of a breastfeeding support group, to be undermined even in this extremely subtle and unintentional way, by presenting a view of ff which when you are feeling vulnerable and hysterical, is already so, so attractive. I was on the point of going out and buying formula milk about twice a day. The BF support kept me going. Having that positive vibe undermined by the sight of something that looked so much easier and problem-free, could be the difference between leaving the support group determined to carry on, or going into the chemist on the way home to buy a tin of formula. The BFC know that - that's why they don't want to risk it. Not because they're a bunch of militant bitches who want to be nasty to bottle feeders. Please don?t stereotype people in this negative way, please try and understand where they are coming from and give them credit for being decent, well-meaning people. Most of them are volunteers, they are freely giving of their time and expertise, their only motive is to ensure that vulnerable, shell-shocked women are helped and supported in a culture which overwhelmingly refuses to help and support them. To characterize them as some kind of domineering nutters forcing their views on other people, is just wrong.

Sorry this is so long but I can't find a way of saying this shorter!

i admit to chuckling a little at your idealised view of formula feeding, vss, sorry. truth is, it's a monumental pain in the arse compared to bfing, as twofalls said. (and the reason we know is that we were mix feeders for months, so yes, we really have seen it from both sides of the fence but with more sodding pumping. except, of course, that all the support got you somewhere whereas for us we just struggled on for months and still got stuck with ffing in the end).

I just can't believe that this is enough of a problem to merit banning people from ffing in the place, really. i was absolutely bloody MORTIFIED to have to ff dd after she'd appeared to bf for a good hour with the bfc standing by. no one, but no one would have been jealous of me standing with a screaming baby trying to get my cool bag out, find someone to bring me a kettle with hot water, wait to heat it up (say, three or four minutes of hellish yelling) and then see the baby feast upon it when all i wanted in the world was to feed her myself.

just don't believe that one woman in one cafe is worth such an over-reaction in the babycafe's part. i'll bet any money she'd never have darkened their door again, without needing to be told.

anyway, the real question. have any of you ever actually seen a ffer in your bfing cafes? and if so, how on earth did you manage to keep going?

Aitch I don't have an idealised view of ff, I ff my DD and it was a huge PITA, but when you are vulnerable and hormonal, unaware of the full benefits of breastmilk, have unconsciously internalised the message "breast is best but formula's near as dammit" and you haven't had one pain-free, stress-free feed for eleven days, it looks infinitely easier to someone in that vulnerable state.

And that's why BFC can't have it. They simply can't. If only one woman in a group gives up BF because of such an event, they would be failing in their duty to her and in their remit. It is very very sad when someone who has had to give up bf feels bad about it (I've been there and I know how it feels, I felt shit too). But a bfc has got to give priority to providing proper support. Allowing women to ff there, completely undermines that, I hope I've explained why.

Aitch, with my DD, I didn't manage to keep going. That's why I'm so ultra-aware of how fragile even women who desperately want to bf their babies are.

I was determined, well-informed, I'd successfully overcome horrendous bf problems with my first child and knew they could be overcome. And yet I gave up.

It is so, so important to give vulnerable bf women all the support they need. If they don't get it, most of them give up. End of.

Anything which undermines any aspect of their determination to bf, is wrong. Anything. Including undermining the only real support some of them get.

ViciousSquirrelSpotter,
Good post. Your points were excellent. A breastfeeding support group is a special enviromnent. Helps mums who are going through similar experiences.

There is no way of feeding a baby that is easy. The intial stages of learning to breastfeed can be hellish with cracked, bleeding nipples, and the worry about the baby putting on weight. Women who nurse their children can also experience thrush, mastitis, worries about weight gain, weaning, getting a child to take the bottle and going back to work.

However it is a different world. Nursing a child is more than just a way of feeding, its a way of life. For example most breastfed babies do not sleep through the night at an early age. Babies have growth spurts which makes following a routine difficult.

I feel its wrong to judge someone who bottles feeds their baby. Women usually have good reasons and do whats best for their family. If you feel lonely and isolated there are organisations like the NCT and surestart in most towns.

Have read this entire thread, and it has so PAINFULLY reminded me of the awful crap I got when ff my dd1, not through choice, that I am not even going to comment. Except to say that I agree with Aitch!

vss, as some of us have said we were made welcome at bf groups with bottles. we didn't keep going but we were made welcome.
i genuinely don't think my bfc, as part of the best and most qualified team in scotland, was making a mistake by welcoming us. nothing, but nothing would have led her to jeopardise the women and babies under her care i can assure you so i personally don't agree with you that it's potentially negligent to allow bottle-feeding at a bfsupport group. but that's fine, we don't have to agree.
and frances, i think you're being a bit bonkers about this, tbh, gonig on about pnd and loneliness and isolation. you're jumping to wild conclusions i think, about myself and others on the thread.
the woman in question had just been to a baby massage class and she and a friend (and others as i understand it) had gone to the bf group. her friends were not sensitive to invite her to come, that's for sure, but i reckon that the bfcs should have been able to suck up one without asking her not to return. three visits, four visits... maybe they should have a word if they felt it was causing a problem with their clients... but there was no need to say anything immediately. plus, i don't think she'd have gone back anyway if twofalls and my experience is anything to go by.

Thank god for Aitch - the total voice of reason on this thread.

Nothing but nothing can be worse than the terrible guilt you feel when having to abandon your plans to BF if you;ve dearly wanted to do it but can't. It could be argued that it's not nice to see women BFing easily and them smugly telling you in a very patronising way "yes it is a struggle but you have to persevere and break through that pain barrier if you are truly committed to doing what's best for your baby".

When in such a situation it doesn't exactly make you feel a million dollars when you take your baby to be weighed and are faced with a picture of a woman BFing her baby with a caption proclaiming "The Milk of Human Kindness". No one can demand that those posters are ripped down because they make some FFs feel like shite. FFs get hormonal too.

Don't think for one misguded second that the decision to give up on BFing and switch to FF is easy, or is taken lightly by everyone who does it.