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Houston Babies
PAGAS
member
BFing in public
PAGAS
member
What is your comfort level?
For me, I could never do it. Ever.
Quartz and I were at playgroup at the library and one of the participants just whipped it out, no cover, no nothing. I know it is nature and all, but I was uncomfortable.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: BFing in public
I have BFed in public, but I usually aim for a far away place where people aren't likely to pass by me and I HAVE to have a cover (I was travelling at the time, so it was better than trying to find a place to pump). The only time I was in close quarters was on a plane and DS was SCREAMING. I had to sit in the middle seat (full flight) and I used my cover, but luckily, it was 2 girls sitting on either side of me, and they just avoided eye contact. I am sure everyone was just happy he was not crying anymore! And, of course, he was tired, and fighting sleep (so cranky) so he pretty much stayed latched the entire 2 hours (ouch!).
I would be weirded out if someone just whipped it out (unless they were good about using their shirt to hide everyhting - I have a few friends who have gotten good at covering themselves up with their shirt/baby blanket and I don't even notice).
i nurse anywhere and everywhere. it's how i feed my baby and i don't feel like i need to give a bottle just because that is how some other people feed theirs.
i will use a blanket if there are older people or men who i don't know well. i always wear a nursing tank with a shirt over it, though, so while it's obvious what i am doing, there is no bare boob showing. i definitely nurse at playgroup and so do a lot of other women. those who are comfortable whip it out, while some use hooter hiders or blankets. i am not really comfortable with a blanket over me- it makes it hard for me to nurse and i can never get the baby latched right when i am worried abotu the blanket.
i was nursing mathis at the russo's lunch a couple weeks ago, so this post could very well even be directed at me.
I did it all the time and plan to do it again with this baby. I nursed E in the middle of the mall on a busy weekend before Christmas. I gave up trying to use a cover when she was about 6 weeks old because we both hated it.
I NIP'd on several full airplanes and every single time I had an older guy next to me. Mostly they just seemed grateful that I was getting her to shut up.
However, I do think that this applies to me:
My entire boob has never been exposed (good god, my entire boob is still bigger than DD's entire head, no need for all that to be out there!), but I'm sure there have been a few flashes of skin. No one ever said a word to me or even gave me a dirty look.
I admit I did not always wear a tank under my shirt because I get hot easily... and if someone caught a glimpse of my belly skin I'm sure that would be more offensive/nausea-inducing than getting a peep at my boob.
Honestly, in most NIP cases I feel like I've seen more boob on the trashy teens at the mall than anyone ever sees BFing a baby.
ha! me too. that is why i wear the tank. more to cover the gut than the boob. but what happens is i show little to no skin when i nurse.
although i did wear a strapless dress to a dinner party and have to pull a whole side down to feed mathis. but that didn't really show much more than the dress and no one who was there really cared.
Yep, I used to NIP all the time when Char was at the age(s) when she needed it every 3 hours or so. I personally didn't like the thought of my bare boob being exposed, so I always took the Bebe au Lait everywhere with me. Other than that, I had no shame about where I nursed. I did it in restaurants, malls, at people's houses, etc. Hey, when baby needs to eat, baby needs to eat! If I just didn't want to deal with it, I would take a bottle of breast milk, but it was just SO much easier to BF when we were out and about. The Bebe au Lait sometimes was a pain b/c she would kick and squirm, especially as she got older, but I tried my best.
I also wore the Glamour Mom nursing tanks almost everywhere during that time period b/c like the PPs, I hated having my fat tummy exposed more than my boob!
I will admit this is half of the reason I use a the cover.
I have nursed in public but it was always with a blanket. Hell, I've nursed at an Astros game. Obviously, to each her own but that's how I fed my baby and I wasn't going to seek refuge everytime my child was hungry. She was hungry, so I fed her - period.
Haha...this is so true!
It depends. I'd like to plan ahead and have a bottle with me if we're in public (restaurant, etc) but if I didn't, I'd at least use a cover. That would be my same plan around family and most friends. I know my male friends/cousins would be uncomfortable for me to bare all - but I will not banish myself to the other room or the car.
Now, my close girlfriends who are also moms...I probably won't think twice about it.
In your situation - if it were my first playgroup, I'd be a little more modest, but if we'd been hanging out for months...probably not. We all do it/did it.
Dee... it's good to NEVER say NEVER.
cause you just never know what you're going to need to do.
It was her first time at playgroup.
So Tasty, So Yummy
Oh, and there are people who are just crazy-indiscreet about it... like my BFF's relative who (at BFF's college graduation dinner), whipped out her entire boob, THEN got out a burb cloth, THEN got the baby out of the car seat. At the table. With 20+ people looking on because by then her baby was screaming its head off in a packed upscale restaurant. Like I said, crazy-indiscreet. Fun times. The upside is that everybody remembers BFF's graduation dinner even 10+ years later!
Woh!
I wonder what the etiquette books say about this topic ;-) Anyone have an Emily Post laying around they can thumb through and see?
I have one, but seeing as how it's from 1946, I'm guessing this particular topic isn't covered!
So DH and I tailgate with a bunch of friends every year - the last two years we joined up with one of the guy's family friends that had a sweet spot reserved for them every game. This year we decided to move far far away from them. Why? Because the daughter would literally bust out the boob in front of everyone...not discreet in the least. The guys were all uncomfortable and we ladies didn't appreciate it much either.
I mean, you would be having a conversation with her and all of sudden she was whipping out the boob while talking to you....and THEN grabbing the baby after the boob hung there for a good while. She is reason number 1 that we are not tailgating with them anymore.
I've lost my concern about this. If someone else is feeding, it does not bother me.
My son would NOT nurse under cover - I felt self-conscious and was sad that I felt that way. So, we rarely went out and I was grateful for the non-judgment of play group and other such places.
So, knowing how that feels, I am fine with someone being comfortable enough to just feed. The person might just have a baby like mine was (unable to nurse covered) and I am happy to support them.
I'm with Rayskit and others who do it anytime, anywhere. And however someone feeds their child is up to them. To each her own, I say. And I do understand that everyone has their own comfort level. The cover never worked for us either and I refused to be stuck in my house 24/7 out of shame. He still nurses multiple times a day! I can't even imagine how stir crazy I would have gone had I never felt comfortable nursing in public. I do it all the time. My playgroup mom's an I are very free about it as well.
But really, it's just a boob! And if nursing mothers have such a problem with it, no wonder women who do something as automatic as feeding their child the way nature intended get so much hell for it. We are our own worst enemy sometimes.
Pagas, I remember when your company was going to force you to pump in the bathroom on a business trip and not even offer an office or some other more sanitary place to do it. I guess my thought is that we have to chose how we want nursing to be viewed in the public eye. Is it something we push into the dark, discriminate against (however informally) and pretend never happens? Or do we become advocates for women, ourselves included, to be able to pump in a sanitary space when out of town on business or to feed our child in public without apology or shame? I only say this because I don't feel they are separate issues, not to stir the pot.
I am not judging her. I said that I was uncomfortable, which I was. That is not judging her, that is me feeling awkward in a particular situation. We were in the library with lots of people around and I just felt strange. I made no judgement on her, I was just sharing my feelings.
So Tasty, So Yummy
this sounds like you are making a judgement that she should have not taken her breast out without a cover or something over her.
How is describing the situation a judgement? Please enlighten me.
So Tasty, So Yummy
I was not referring to you.
I was simply meaning that our play groups were very non-judgmental and remembering how lucky I felt about that. It was all about my happiness to have found such caring people to spend my maternity to leave with and finding someplace where I felt comfortable NIP (which was not easy for me).
- when I wrote this, I did not even realize your incident was at a play group.
I have no issue with women BFing discreetly in public, but I will be the first to say that I feel very uncomfortable when some stranger just whips out their breast for all the world to see with no cover. At a playgroup, with people who've known each other a while....sure, that's fine....but strangers in a public place, yes, that makes me uncomfortable. Just as the teeny-boppers with revealing/skimpy clothing makes me feel.
There's nothing wrong with you feeling that way, Pagas....and I can relate.
describing the situation with no inkling of your opinion on it would be nonjudemental. "what's your comfort level? recently a mom at a playgroup felt comfortable enough to nurse, uncovered, in front of people she didn't know" is very different from "whipped it out, no cover, no nothing. i was uncomfortable"
your comment reads as though you are saying that she should have covered up. if she should have covered up, then being uncovered is inappropriate. however, this is a matter of opinion and when your opinion is that someone did the opposite of what you would have preferred to see, i would call that a judgement. anytime anyone of us has an opinion about what someone else should have done, we are making a judgement call.
i don't think you're wrong for having your opinion or feeling uncomfortable. that is not a situation everyone is comfortable in and that's ok. but you were clearly saying that you found her behavior inappropriate.
I so agree with you! I think that half of our problems as women are brought on ourselves. And I think that if WE, as women, who support each other through most things find breastfeeding uncomfortable... what does that say to society?
I'm not saying you should do what Jen or Cali's examples did and just flop it out... leave it hanging there... c'mon we're more graceful than that.
but I felt that (especially towards the end), I had gotten good enough at it that you wouldn't have known unless I wanted you to.
Elena: Never nursed her in public. I either went to the car or fed her a bottle. *I* was never comfortable with my level of discreetness.
Julia: She was nursed EVERYWHERE. The silly girl would NEVER Ever take a bottle. I mean never. You don't know how much I cried over that fact. And how many ounces of pumped milk I dumped. So she was fed at Texans games, the zoo, restaurants, the mall, stores. I can't think of a spot she wasn't nursed publicly at! I really had no choice b/c I really couldn't sequester myself to the house with an active toddler too.
6-yr-old Elena and 4-yr-old Julia.
My Blog! All about my girls and quilting
I nursed in public quite a bit with DD #1.
It was such a struggle to breastfeed after delivering her. I wanted to BF exclusively, but I wasn't blessed with the immediate and overabundant supply I've heard many women mention on this board. So it felt like I was nursing 24 hours a day those first few weeks. It was either breastfeed in public or sequester myself in the house, which I wasn't willing to do.
I wore nursing tops and used a big blanket when DD nursed as a newborn. To this day I remember how uncomfortable it felt trying to nurse her at a restaurant while simultaneously being discreet about it. Ugh!
Mia was a never took a bottle girl. There was no possible way I was going to sit around. So I NIP. I used a cover in public (if I was at a girlfriend's house who I knew was comfortable with it, I wouldn't bother) becuase Mia was a pop on pop off type of gal. Airports, planes, zoos, library, stores, cars, restaurants. I'm pretty sure we've nursed everywhere. Even CHURCH.
Micah is the same. She'll take a bottle, but I'm much too lazy to be quite honest. I like the ease of it being at the right temperature and available and you don't have to worry if it spoiled or anything. I've nursed her everywhere.
Micah's a really quick nurser and I usually wear nursing tanks and am super fast with the on and off. So, yeah, there have been times that I haven't used a cover. I'm cool with it, and make sure that I'm in a spot where if you noticed that I was nursing wihtout a cover you were looking.
I'm on the fence. I do think that if we are uncomfortable about each other nursing... yeah it isn't helping the rest of the country catch up. But I do think that, especially now when so many people are still eeeked out by nursing in general, it's best to be as discreet as possible. I've gotten looks, comments, and outright nastiness when nursing, especially with Micah. And I"m completely covered and never make a big deal out of the fact that I"m about to feed my baby. It's crazy. I can imagine that if I'd not been using a cover it would have pushed those people even further into the "people who nurse are crazy/gross/whatever" camp.
It kind of depened on where I was but at the mall I just used my hooter hider. At a class at the women's hospital I would nurse sans cover. I think at play group I have done both. I also remember one time having to nurse in a restaurant and used the nursing cover there as well (at our table).
I do not have a problem with others NIP, in fact I admire it. I am way too modest and can't do it. I've had lunch with many nesties here who have fed their kiddo at the table and are very discreet about it. I don't feel I can do that. I have nursed in the car, dressing room, etc. though if we know we are going to be out for awhile we will take a bottle. If I am at my house or someone else's and it is just friends (girls) then I will nurse in front of them. It is a pain to have to remove yourself and go into another room. I have never used a nursing cover so I am not sure if that would change how I view myself NIP.
I think most of the comments and looks that are given when someone NIP is from other women and I think that is sad. Perhaps it is a generation thing and it will change moving forward.
Crazy Christmas Kids!
This. I think it is fine that women nurse, admirable even, but I don't feel comfortable seeing someone else's boob in public...especially a stranger's or someone I just met. I don't think it has anything to do with women uniting or anything like that, I just think in our culture that many people aren't comfortable with seeing other people's private parts. No conspiracy or anything like that. It's just plain and simple, some poeple don't like being forced to stare at other's privates ;-) I have never been uncomfortable when someone NIP with a blanket or hooter hider....
I agree. Showering is a natural thing as well, but I don't do it in public, nor do I want to see anyone else doing it either.
So Tasty, So Yummy