Breastfeeding in public

I love to see a mum feeding her baby.

Watching some older people slopping their food down their fronts eating, turns my stomach.

You can't always or even ever train a baby to feed on a schedule, jingl so it isn't entirely up to the mother. And you usually can't see anything that might disturb anyone easily upset. I'd rather sit next to a breast feeding baby than an older child whose parents feel it is repressive to teach table manners.

Yes. There's that as well. (Not that I've ever seen that tbh)

Heavens! - I cannot imagine why you feel like that jingle - there is no smell or mess. What is it that offends you? What harm does it do you? I am baffled here. It is no different to you sitting in the cafe drinking a glass of milk. Why might that offend anyone? I do not think it is sanctimonious to find nothing wrong with someone (albeit a small someone) drinking - that is all that is happening.

Is it the "tit" that you object to? Again I cannot see why.

That repy was to Lona. I have seen mucky kids, but that is perhaps more understandable. Not sure how you can get a piece of chocolate cake in a three year old's gob mouth without a mess being created.

It doesn't put me off my food at all. What an extraordinarily narrow minded post, jingle!

It is different from drinking milk out of a glass! Of course it is. It is a biological function and need not be done in a public eating place.

Narrow minded! On Gransnet? Surely not!!!

"A public eating place" says it all Jings. It's just a baby eating in public.

Do you object to seeing lambs and calves suckling too, jings, and if so, why? We are mammals too.

Or kittens, or puppies, or piglets?

Objecting to baby mammals eating in public is, quite simply, silly.

Well I hope jingl that you never come into the M&S cafe where I regularly go with the Mum I am supporting through Homestart. She is breastfeeding triplets (alternates 2 x breast 1 on a bottle) and it's her treat of the week.The babies feed at 2hourly intervals so very difficult to plan any trip which doesn't involve a feed.Other than the odd starchy look from some matron most people in the cafe are clamouring to chat or help.

It's not eating. It's sucking a fluid out of its mother.

I love to see lambs etc. in fields. (already mentioned that. Read the post properly)

I loved to see my grandsons feeding. At home. Either theirs or mine. Very sweet.

So long as they don't do it at lunchtime Grannylin. That's fine. Homestart is excellent. Well done to you.

Sucking fluid (its total food) is how baby mammals survive. I think that counts as eating. Anyway, you could call it drinking instead.

Splitting hairs and being prudish is all that ugh attitude is.

You are being deliberately obtuse now.

My gast is truly flabbered jingle. We are all animals. Babies have the right to be fed as well as others. I find the sight of a mother breast feeding her infant a lovely sight. You could turn the other way of course.

There are narrow minded and unenlightened people who also object to a person, child or adult, with learning disabilities and eating problems having their meal in public.

A local landlord asked one child with Down Syndrome to turn the child round because it was offensive to others eating. Disgusting. Needless to say the family left along with 40 or so builders from a local building site who had their two main meals a day there. They lost a lot of custom that day and for the next year.

I have always found that it is done very discreetly. I do not have a problem with that. I would rather that the baby was quiet and feeding than screaming because he/she is hungry.

We all perform many "biological functions" in public: breathing, walking, eating, drinking. There are some we choose to do in private: urinating, defecating, copulating. Are you seriously equating breast feeding with these latter three? And if so, why?

What is objectionable about "sucking fluid out of its mother?" I am intrigued by this. Do you object to the sight of the breasts? Most women feed discreetly and do not wave them about.

I really thought that the world had moved on from these Victorian attitudes. Obviously not!

Why would the lunch of any offended adult take priority over the lunch of a hungry baby? Or for that matter over the lunch of a family which just happens to have a Downs child?

A beautiful sight & usually done discreetly & sad to say apologetically. Much better than feeding in disgusting toilets as I sometimes had to do in the late 70s when I had to be out all day. However, I do draw the line at pulling one's large breast out & feeding a 2 year old when seated in a prominent position during a wedding ceremony. Though he is fully for breast-feeding & set up a prem baby milk donation scheme in Bath when I was overflowing with milk, it did put Mr Gad off his stroke when he was the Registrar.

"Sanctimonious garbage" – jingle please don't mince your words; tell us what you really think.

You could always take your meal into the toilet to eat jingle as some mums are asked to do with their babies.

My DD is breast feeding her 7 week old, we have been out and about and she feeds where ever he needed to, cafe, shops, drs surgery, even assembly at school, where no one was any the wiser to what was happening.
He is fed before we leave the house jingle but if we waited until he was satisfied my DD would be house bound, the baby had a tongue tie which has now been snipped but he is still under the impression he needs to feed for long periods and often to be able to latch on sufficiently to be able to have a full feed. He dictates the fed times.
I would be surprised if anyone was aware she was feeding, she uses layers of clothing so nothing is visible, all very discrete.
I think there is anything more natural than a mother breast feeding, and I dont think a mother should feel she has to visit a loo to feed in private, we wouldn't want to eat in a loo so why should a baby.