Breastfeeding Out & About

[HotI]

I have surprised myself with the ease at which i have been able to breastfeed out & about; at friend's places, in my car, in Target, in a meeting, at a restaurant...

Yesterday, i walked into town with my little one who currently has a cold so is feeding lots and lots. She was all rugged up and in the pram, we got there ok, walked around the supermarket and she woke up and started getting grizzly at the checkout. I thought she might go back to sleep but it was a decent walk back home again, so decided i would see if she wanted a feed before we left.

There is a laundromat in the same set of shops where they have seats and its pretty warm so i went there. My town was hit by the Black Saturday bushfires, and we still have people living in sheds or caravans who don't have working washing machines or places to dry their clothes in Winter so the laundromat is kept busy.

As i walked up to the laundromat there was one guy out the front having a smoke. I said 'g'day' and went in. I also had to move the shopping around in the under basket so it wasn't dragging on the ground. ..... So, i sat down and started to feed bub. There were 4 or 5 dryers going and then they all began finishing up really close to each other (as if they were all put on at the same time), so i was thinking it was probably all the guy out the fronts.

When i was tooling around with the shopping before i started feeding, the guy came in and checked something and then went outside at about the time i had got bub out to feed her.

As the dryers were all stopping, i was expecting the guy to come back in. I kept feeding, but then wondered whether he was staying outside because 1)he was uncomfortable with me feeding or 2)he was worried about me being uncomfortable. I used to be a bit antsy about making sure i wasn't making breastfeeding women uncomfortable- so much that by avoiding them or looking away they were prob more self-conscious!

I wondered whether i should have said something, and what... like, 'it's ok to come in' or 'i'm just going to give her a feed, hope you don't mind' or whether he was just more comfortable to wait...or maybe i just think too much and he was quite happy to have another smoke or whatever he was doing.

One of my SILs prefers to go outside when i'm feeding. I don't mind this, i'm not going to hide but i will give her a heads up if i am going to feed so she can do what she wants (i think she is mellowing cos she doesn't go right outside now, just moves to a different part of the room) And, my bub is only little and doesn't really get distracted yet so most of the time no-one can see anything anyway.

So, do you feel the need to ease other's discomfort, or just feed and let them deal with how they choose?

[~Kim~]

When I first started it was a struggle for me to feed anywhere, but i got sick of finding a 'hiding place', so very quickly decided that if I didn't have a problem, those who did could choose their reaction. Like you usually if I am with people I tell them (not ask if it's OK) that I am going to feed and let them deal with it, but it's harder in a public place.
If a group of big burly policemen can deal with it and carry on....
I think you had a great idea to go into the laundromat - that really made me smile, as for the fellow, well no, I reckon if you'd have said anything he might have been more embarrassed. So I probably would have done the same.

[kelebek]

I understand how you feel and it's like walking a tightrope sometimes I do however think you don't have to make people at ease. I think if someone is in the same room that there is nothing wrong with a heads up "my baby needs a feed and it is warm and cosy in here" and let them make the choice what they do. I agree in this case you may have embarrased the guy more if you were more direct.

FWIW my FIL always walked away when I was feeding DS too.