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.

oh right, i see. well i think that they really didn't 'jack it in', and i know i didn't. i've never been happy about formula feeding, and nor were they. but needs must sometimes and all that. so they'd have got more encouragement from me, in a way, than from someone getting on with bfing themselves.

Aitch - I'd agree with you 100% if it were true. But it patently isnt, and folk are making assumptions about what happened, when, tbh, if anything like folk have suggested had happened - it would have been included in the article to give it that really salacious edge, no?

The article hasnt mentioned anything of the like, and it smacks of local rag sensationalism - slow news day?

I think its disingenuous to imply that these groups are excluding mothers and making them feel bad, when their existence is clearly in conflict with that assertion.

There may be a case for the woman who dealt with the situation didnt handle it very well, but, I think it could be easily argued that she ought not to have been put in that situation in the first place.

don't think it's bf vs formula issue - just that she wasn't bf so why should she be there. If it was a formula feeding group why should a bf mum take up a seat?

i'm really just goiing on the basis of the article, vvv.
the bottom line is that you catch more flies with honey, and if the poor woman was sufficiently upset as to contact a newspaper (or someone in her family did, or they were so upset for it to come to the ears of the local rag) then she presumably wasn't some 'can't be arsed, bring on the turkey twizzlers' attitude.

ach, i think i've read enough posts on here from bfers feeling pressurised into giving up earlier than they want to by sils, friends and mils more accustomed to formula to think that in a 'formula feeding cafe' they'd be only too happy to get another convert...

slightly off tangent but,hulababy-

'Dinosaur - I am only basing it on what is written here, and IMO, for any mum to be sent home from any form of support group feeling guilty and upset is wrong. '

that made me laugh,as i was asked to leave my local PND 'support' group when dd2 was a week old,due to my ds2's 'disruptive behaviour'i cried for weeks about that!

i dont agree with whoever said ff is easy-where have i gone wrong ??oyu have to find the right formula,the right sort of teats,then the baby needs different teats,sometimes wont suck due to teething/earache/thrush caused by ab's to treat the earache....i wish it was easy!

however,i have ff my last 4 babies from birth after failing miserably at bf my first,and i cant see why a ff mum was upset at being asked not to return to a bf support group?if i had been to baby massage and my friends were going to a baby cafe after,i would approach the staff before ff my lo and ask if it was ook for me to be there,just as a one off.i wouldnt expect to be welcomed at a place like that.

also,i find it pretty much impossible to take my baby to normal cafes these days,as most of them will no longer warm bottles due to health+safety regulations.

i think the powers that be(whoever they are)would prefer it if all new mothers stayed in their houses for the first 6 months of their baby's life.

I dunno aitch. Everyone has to have their 15 minutes of fame etc.....

at your cynicism, my frog-eyed queen...

i think the powers that be(whoever they are)would prefer it if all new mothers stayed in their houses for the first 6 months of their baby's life.

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Is it just cos I'm knackered that that sounds a great idea for me?

isn't cod the powers that be? i think so.

Excellent points Aitch

When I was looking for help with breastfeeding, I would not have liked to have someone there bottlefeeding. The feeling of all being in this together, all a bit shaky, all seeking support, all norks akimbo, was very important to me.
Just as I would not expect perfectly able bodied, NT kids to be at a SN babygym. No probs with NT/athletic kids - I have one myself for heaven's sake - but this was an NHS funded group for children with mobility needs. That was the whole point of it.

lol at the thought that a woman who has failed to bf is not shaky... yes, how dare she go with her friends to a place where they all feel safe and get support? she should be forced to wait outside. as your NT child should be forced to wait outside an SN mobility issues group attended by all his friends. that wouldn't be at all heavy-handed and counter-productive, would it?

Actually my dd was allowed to come, because a/I had no childcare and she was one, and b/my son had mobility issues and that was why I was there. I would have been pretty upset if random people with children with no mobility problems had been allowed in. It was an NHS funded group for children with mobility problems. Other people can have all sorts of other issues with their kids, but that wasn't the point.

A huge part of support groups is that you are all in it together.

well, the experience of my hospital's bfing support group was that bfing-minded ffers did not go against that feeling.
tbh, lots of the women at that group had very little in common. over-supply is not the same as under-supply, thrush is not the same as mastitis, cracked nipples are not the same as a sleepy preemie who won't latch on... lots of different issues all brought together because each wanted to do the best by their child. pro-bfing ffers are part of that gang too, tbh.

it's never going to be like what, dino?

I haven't read the whole thread but wanted to respond to someone who asked why someone who bottle feeds would go to a breastfeeding cafe.

I'm a bottle feeding mum who goes to a breast feeding drop in. Why on earth do I do that?

Because I wanted to breastfeed and failed, and I am still hoping to get some help and advice on where I can go from here, my baby's 8 weeks tomorrow. At a week old he was taken back into hospital and fed through tubes (problems latching him on consistently, dehydration, jaundice and weight loss). Then he was mainly fed through bottles and althougha lot of lip service was paid to pro breast feeding policies, the hospital didn't really come up with what I needed to help me to breastfeed properly. I still think it could have been different.

fingers crossed it will next time, elkie. congrats on your new wee baby.

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? should she be excluded from the support of all her 9 friends because her child doesn't fit the criteria?
new mums need friends, i think. they need not be made pariahs because bfing didn't work out for them. not that we know everything about the story, obv, but it does sound like a monumental own goal to me.

sorry to hear of your probs with bf elkie and hope the bf support groups are useful

I (was it me?) wondered why someone who bottle feeds would go to a bf cafe, but should have been more specific, I don't see why someone would go to a bf support group if they are not bf and have no reason to go to that group other than to meet up with some friends and have a coffee - ie a total social event with no intention of asking any bf questions/supporting others with bf probs/sharing bf tips or issues etc. having read some people's descriptions of their bf cafes, i can see that in some places it would be fine and not out of place to turn up for a bit of a social and free coffee only but I would find it odd behaviour at the bf drop ins I've been to. perhaps because I imagine a group of women sat apart from everyone else, gossiping away and having a natter as you do, nowt wrong with it usually but a bit offputting as you sit sobbing about your cracked nipples in a corner, marginalised in a group that was set up to support you. perhaps it was nothing like that. I wonder if I am misunderstanding the point of some of these bf cafes

I agree with Dinosaur's post:

"I wonder, though, where they should have drawn the line? One bottle-feeder okay, but what if the majority of the mums at the class had been bottle-feeding and they'd all decided to go to this cafe afterwards? Would that be okay?"

I went to a breastfeeding support group when I had my first baby. It wasn't called a 'cafe' but it was a group set up to support women who were breastfeeding their babies. I would have thought it strange (and felt uncomfrotable) if someone had attended this group who didn't require the breastfeeding support. There were plenty of other new mother groups which offered support which welcomed all types of feeders.

As for the issue of it being expressed milk - most people who have breastfed and expressed breastmilk can tell the difference. It looks different in the bottle.

And really, if the bottle-feeding mother had felt sad about not being able to breastfeed, her friends weren't being very sensitive by taking her along to a group where all the other mothers were breastfeeding.