Breastfeeding mother is told to leave Sports Direct

[CamelDave]

Saw this in the Nottingham Post today, can't believe the store would go to these lengths....

www.nottinghampost.com/Breastfeeding-mother-told-leave-sports-shop/story-21004058-detail/story.html

Disgusting.

It's a shame the nice customers who helped her by pushing her buggy outside couldn't surround her and glare at the shop staff.

People power![ grin]

My local Sports Direct plays music that talks about sex and bitches etc. Now that's inappropriate

You do know roughly when your baby is going to need feeding next. I fed all sorts of places. But I don't really think sports direct is a suitable place.

Regardless of whether you think its suitable she had a right to feed there without being thrown out like some sort of criminal.

And I can never predict when DS needs feeding next, he's a greedy chops, sometimes it's an hour, sometimes it's four, sometimes it's two.

I know roughly my baby's going to feed within the next 30 minutes to 3 hours, but that's not much help in planning a shop to be in.

Then there are the times he'll conveniently have a feed while we've stopped for lunch and then twenty minutes later, when we've resumed shopping, will decide purely for shits and giggles that he wasn't actually finished and wants another feed RIGHT NOW!!! I should be able to feed him where I am without having to go back to the cafe, without having to go to a dingy little feeding room that stinks of shitty nappies and without worrying that I will be publically humiliated and removed from a shop for doing so.

If it's OK to bottle feed in SportsDirect (and I think we can assume nobody got this sort of treatment when ff - I certainly didn't), then it's OK to bf in there.

I also agree about aiming high in your complaint.

AFAIK, SportsDirect has won plaudits for being a good employer, and certainly the service in there has really improved over the last couple of years. I think they'd want to know about a significant part of their customer base being alienated

I'm fully intending to breastfeed my bump until around a year if possible and baby wants to and isn't biting.

I intend to express some feeds after a month so dp can feed too. But you can't really take expressed milk out with you as far as im aware as you can't heat it up. so I will feed my baby where ever and whenever needed wearing suitable clothes to cover things up. Any one with a problem will get a sharp tongued response. I will of course try to go to family friendly places like libraries, the park or a coffee shop where possible but i understand you can't always, especially as not all babies are good at sticking to their routine .
The woman probably didn't want to leave her father In the shop if for some reason she couldn't contact him. she could have left her baby screaming instead, I'm sure the assistant would have preferred that -.-
what riles me is that I bet no one would have cared if she'd got a bottle out!

I really hope that assistant gets a shock if they have kids.

In so many countries it's totally normal for mothers to breastfeed in public, why are we so prudish when we seem to love boobs being on display in every other possible way - are we scared to be reminded what they're actually for???
I don't think I have seen more than 1 or 2 mums feeding in public actually!

Come to scotland- breastfeeding women are everywhere. If I am out in town I would see loads in a day.
Having said that I often only know that these women are breastfeeding because I have breastfed so long myself. To the inexperienced eye it will look like a woman cuddling a baby. I know myself I have breastfed while my baby is in a sling and I am pushing a trolley along the aisles in Tesco, for instance,not many people would even realise what I am doing. Not that I am suggesting that women need to be discreet, but alita you probably come across more breasfeeding women than you realise, you just don't notice them. You will do though once you start breastfeeding yourself.

I FF and wouldn't have got a bottle out in a shop, I would have gone and found a more suitable place and the baby may have had to cry for a couple of minutes.

This is the problem. You are taking your experience as a ff mother and getting it wrong. I formula fed my first dc. Every 4 hours. Very easy to plan things around. However with subsequent dc I bf. Every damned 20 minutes for the first 3 months of their lives. That is the reason we have laws protecting a mother's right to breast feed anywhere. Because to not have the option would result in mother's being forced to stay home because you really can't plan around a BF baby,

I also find it very bizzare that some of you are saying she should have left the store..and then gone out and found another store

Should she have kept wandering in to the rain until she found a "suitable" store? I mean it's ridiculous. Half the time you're being told you should feed your child in a filthy toilet, the other half you're being told where you can't feed your baby (Sports Direct is too filthy for breast feeding apparently) .

Maybe, just maybe your opinion doesn't matter? Maybe your opinion only matters if you are the one breast feeding?

Ok so who's up for a mass sports direct feed-in?
C'mon let's do it. Let's gather up those babies and latch em on in-store.

I think a mass breastfeed is already being organised

www.nottinghampost.com/Mothers-hold-breastfeeding-protest-Sports-Direct/story-21007037-detail/story.html

I'd go to one at my local branch if there was on. But there's not. So it would just be me feeding the baby on my own, no different to any other day of the week really, I'd need some sort of sign to let them know it was a feeding protest as opposed to just a feeding :o

I might go in and rearrange the trainers or put basketballs in the football bin and basketballs in the football bin.

Anarchy! Fight the power!

Ah yes I see they are planning a nurse in. Love it. Bet the shop manager is looking forward to that! Whaddya reckon he's male & no kids & gets totally freaked out! Then goes out and gets wasted & ogles girls' boobs. And doesn't see what's wrong with any of that.

Brilliant! Feel like grabbing a doll and joining 'em.

When is this stupid shop going to issue a statement?

(I'm imagining male management currently panicking as they read page 3 of the Sun with their morning coffee)

I don't have think I've seen a shop assistant in there over 21

I imagine they're hired on at 18, fresh faced and starry-eyed, and on their induction day they fit a little green gem to the hand of every employee. As soon as they hit 21 it turns red and they have to move on to make way for the next batch of 18 year olds. I bet the back office and stock room are full of decrepit 22 year olds.

No statement yet despite this publicity?

Why does the age of the assistants matter?

I think the age of the assistants has been mentioned as many of them are very young and so (stereotypically) are unlikely to have children of their own or awareness of parenting issues like breastfeeding and the associated laws.

Well it's something their company should make them aware of, although from the way they've handled this so far I doubt their staff training is great.

It's a matter of staff training and staff themselves making sure they know these laws.

In scotland where this is a crime then the staff and proprieter bear equal responsibility for upholding the law.

I don't think their ages are relevant. You wouldn't expect them to flout any other employment laws because you would have assumed there was health and safety law training and I am sure they train them on some of the products. How long does it take for them to say, "if a woman is feeding her baby you are legally required to leave her to it".

With as much as it has been in the media lately I am surprised it's not something they bring up to refresh people's memory. If they really have a problem with one woman feeding her baby they are going to be horrified when a 100 women who are confident and comfortable decide to go there feed their babies and aren't concerned about being "discreet".

What if every company was required to keep a poster near the break room that simply shows a breast feeding mother and says "We all need lunch"
and then a copy of the relevant legal info underneath it? They keep other employee info up this would make sense and would be in their face every day.

turtleback they should be trained, like you say it only takes two minutes to say what the legal position is and a poster would be a brilliant idea.

There's so much negativity around BFing making it into the press at the minute and reading some of the comments on the articles and social media sites makes me genuinely worried for how far things could go - I've read comments that "only sluts get their boobs out in public" (that one was on the MN Facebook post about this article), that "these women do it to be deliberately provocative" and that "decent people shouldn't stand for them doing it in public, it's disgusting". Lots of people have had positive experiences, which is great, but others haven't and with it suddenly becoming such a hot button issue how soon is it until some idiot decides a nasty comment directed at the BFing mother at the shops/park isn't enough and what she needs instead is a slap?

I think it needs to be made clear that BFing is protected by law but also that breastfeeding is normal, it's not dirty or shameful or disgusting, but that requires a massive attitude shift in a country that holds Page 3 as a national institution and I'm not sure it would even be possible.

I really am shocked by the amount of people who are proud to state out loud that they see a sexual element to breastfeeding. Calling a woman a slut etc, I mean you see a helluva of a lot less boob from a bf woman than you do from say a beach or a night out. SO I can only assume that for some people the sexual element is the baby if they thought it through for a second they'd be ashamed of what they are actually thinking