I was in town shopping this morning with DD after we had dropped DS at FDC, she was due for a feed so I went to the parents room in the mall to feed her. Anyway we're in there happily feeding away minding our own business when another mum knocks on the door (you need a key to get in and there is only one key which i had). So she comes in with her pram and looks at me sitting back down and watches as a i put DD back on to continue her feed and she says "oh you're breast feeding" and i answer "yes" with a smile she asks me how old DD is when I replied 7 months she just kind of stares at me and says "Oh I gave up after a month my daughter is only 2 months old." so then I felt like she needed me to reassure her or something but she ended up making me feel like I was a weirdo for breastfeeding my 7 month old! I'm grumpy at myself for letting it bother me, so we finished our feed and off we go. This afternoon I'm at my personal trainer's place and she asks "oh are you still feeding" to which i again reply "yep and going strong look how well she's growing" (by this stage i was a bit defensive given my earlier conversation) and once again i get a bit of a funny look and then she says "I could never make it past 6 months with my three I always got too thin." I just replied that i make a conscious effort to eat 4-6 small meals a day and drink plenty of water to help my supply, but once again i was feeling like i needed to defend my actions.
I'm not sure what the point of my post is but it just gets me grumpy that we can be made to feel odd or different for feeding our babies the way nature intended! I don't judge anyone else's feeding preferences so why do I feel like now that DD is over 6 months people expect me to want to wean her! maybe it was a bad day and these women might of felt guilty for not breastfeeding but each time they raised the conversation topic not me! Grrrr okay vent over thanks for reading just needed to get it out because i know DH won't understand why I'm a bit cranky about it!
Thanks again
:HUG: it sometimes feels that because it isn't socially seen as the 'norm' that it is weird... or that's what I get
I'm still breastfeeding DS who is 15months, and I get plenty of looks, especially when we are a a cafe eating lunch then he wants boob. It's a look of 'he's old enough to sit up/talk/eat but you're giving him boob, WTF!'
It's not a nice feeling to have to defend your actions.
If it is any comfort to you, people always act strange when confronted with something different to the way they think the first time. But it takes seeing it and people who are willing to talk about it, to change the way they think. You never know, they might have gone away and thought about it or at the very least soften a little to the idea of it being *normal* even subconciously because now they know someone who does it.
I saw a friend of a friend at the supermarket the other day her baby has been ff from day one which is fine, her choice etc anyway we got chatting, she asked me If I was still bf and I told her yes but that in a few months we'd have to start weaning so that we can ttc number 2 and her response was a few months as if to say I should have stopped already. I know what you mean. Ppl are shocked when I say I'm still bf. She's not even 1 yet
Twice in one day!!!
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It's not a nice feeling to have to defend your actions.
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