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 think it said a friend was given the message to pass on. The paper is a bit one-sided sometimes, but this really got my goat.

It's not a "cafe" in the sense of a Starbucks or a greasy spoon - it's set up using funding.

It's a charitable thing, a bf support group that happens to serve cups of tea and coffee, I think staffed by both paid staff (from the funding and probably the pennies that come from cups of tea and coffee) and volunteers.

I do understand it's very upsetting to feel judged for your feeding choice (especially when it's not been a choice ), but I also feel very strongly that places offering bf support shouldn't be places where mums who don't want to use that support come on a regular basis.

Can I also say that that funding is usually hard-won, limited and specific - it may be that if the cafe is somewhere that ffeeding mums use regularly, the funding won't be forthcoming again.

Or are you all pitchforks at dawn and beyond reason?

On the face of it, it sounds like a disgrace.

But I doubt if the whole story is being told, I wonder if there's more to this than meets the eye?

Like maybe she sat there and said "eurgh, yuk, I don't know how you lot can sit there like cows feeding your babies, it's revolting, it's child abuse, and you're all mad for doing it."

Or something along those lines??? That would explain why she would be asked not to come back. But it would have to be something extreme like that to be reasonable.

psweudonym - so should this mum have had to stand outside the cafe whilst her friends, who she had just finiahed the massage class with, had their coffee and chat?

SWC, you're making ME angry now - I'm involved in setting up bf support in my area and you say I'm doing it to be smug?!

VSS - I doubt that was what she was doing, simply as the article apparantly says she wasn't using formula through choice.

Hula, she didn't - she came in, she had a cup of tea and was told AFTERWARDS the purpose of the cafe.

I would imagine that they'll go to a different place now.

The Baby Cafe website says:

When mothers not requiring support with breastfeeding turn up to a Baby Café drop-in session they are made to feel welcome, given a cup of coffee and any other information they require. Generally they then go elsewhere to get the kind of postnatal support they are seeking.

I can understand that too, and if it began to happen regularly, but someone coming once?

There is no response from them though, so we don't know that it wasn't happening a lot.

Why do we need just a specific breast feeding cafe anyway? Why not a support cafe for all mums, without the need for the divise nature? Then all mums who need some support with feeding can get the help they need.

Can imagine the uproar if there was a Formula Feeding only cafe set up!

smallwhitecat - this story doesn't sound like any of the baby cafes I've read about or the breastfeeding support I've received. It would be sad if a newspaper report which might not be accurate, or one badly run service stopped you getting the help you want.

psweudonym but Mrs Carrot's summary says she was there whilst the message was passed on, and that she went home feeling guilty and upset.

Oh, christ, you lot!

The funding for these places is limited.

It's not given so that all mothers can come and feed their babies however they want on an ongoing basis.

It's given so that women can gain access to support for breastfeeding.

The funding will have been won on that basis.

Can you not see that it's not about making women feel bad? It's about allowing women who need the help to access it!

Imagine these thread titles:

"I went to my local Baby Cafe and couldn't get a seat because it was full of mums bottlefeeding their babies!"

or

"My local Baby Cafe has had its funding withdrawn because it was being used by too many women ffeeding and the council said they weren't prepared to pay for it any more"

It doesn't say that she was there, but returning home upset suggests that.

It is not a clear article.

Imagine-

'I went to a Formula Feeding cafe and was asked not to return'

ok lets use a different name for the Cafe - like Breastfeeding Support Group - which is basically what these "Cafes" are (the fact that you can get a cup of coffee/tea is incidental imo - you can get a cup of tea after the Mothers Union meetings at our church - but I wouldn't call it a Cafe/Tea Shop ).

FF isn't exactly difficult - once you've decided which milk to use and learned how to make it up properly etc etc there's nothing much that can go "wrong" - breastfeeding there is lots that can go "wrong" even long after starting. Therefore (IMO) a group set up to support FF mums would be a waste of money!

Hula, there aren't formulafeeding counsellors and there's no outcry over that.

There are bf counsellors and there aren't enough of them.

It's not about judging. It's about appropriate locations for an after-massage class coffee for a mixed feeding choice group of mums - and a Baby Cafe set up so women can access bf support is clearly not one.

I would be interested to hear the baby cafe's response before passing judgegment, though it is horrible for someone to feel upset in this way.

Plus bf isn't the "norm" in society - ff is.

So bf groups are actually just minority groups - no?

And we don't attack minority groups on MN, do we?

I can now see militant groups of bottle feeding mums taking the breast feeding cafes by storm.. fighting for seats using their changing mats in one hand and pushing strollers forward with the other!

I was being sarcastic fannieannie.

Of course I wouldnt expect a cafe to be set up to support formula fed babies.