From June '14
So for all those who are breastfeeding, have breastfed, or want to breastfeed -- where is the best place to get the job done? In the closet tucked away with a comforter over your head or on a park bench with no shirt on? Ok, obviously those are extreme situations, but I think you know where I'm going with this.
With my first kid I made sure I was in her nursery, in the rocking recliner and that I had complete privacy. It was misery. I wanted to be out in the living room with all of our visiting family talking and laughing. I was trying to be hyper-focused on bonding with my screaming newborn mixed with a longing to feel normal and social. Not a good mixture, especially when topped off with some postpartum anxiety. I just couldn't wrap my head around offending anyone with my "bosom bottles" (the term my 5 and 3 year olds gave my breasts when they first saw me feeding their baby brother. Pretty semi-logical term if you ask me.) No one told me they would be offended. I just assumed my brothers-in-law wouldn't want to see my engorged milk producing bosoms.
By the time she was three months old I had ventured out into the living room to nurse. I was still not a "public nurser", but I could do it in the living room with immediate family. As long as we were covered up, we were fine.
That's as open as I got with her. At church I ran to the cry room when she needed to eat. At a restaurant, I went into the bathroom…gag. In the mall I sat in a fitting room. I made sure to bring a huge blanket and plenty of burp rags.
While I was pregnant with my second daughter (Only 10 months after having my first…ahhhh…Lord have mercy!) I heard about a Hooter Hider. A fantastic invention that I wished I had known about before. The perfect cover with a loop around the neck. Within the loop there is a wire sewn in so Mama has a little peep window for checking on the baby and keep air a flowin' without showing too much exposed rack. I dropped 80 bones on that thing and have used it beyond it's cost.
I use it at home if we have visitors and I need to feed. I leave it in my sons diaper bag. It's with me wherever I go, unless I forget the whole bag. Yep, by my third kid I can survive an outing with no diaper bag. It's happened more than once and the only things I wish I hadn't forgotten was maybe a diaper and that cover. So what do I do? Welp, I let his diaper stay a little too full and I feed my baby if he got hungry.
I have become more and more open to feeding whenever I need to and wherever I need to. My baby is hungry. Get over it. Look away if you’re uncomfortable or stare if you want, but I’m breakin’ out the bosom bottle (my husband stares).
My feelings on the subject were more strongly validated when I read this…
http://www.buzzfeed.com/southerndisposition/25-historical-images-that-normalize-breastfeeding-jlw6
After I read the hilarious captions to those photos, I fed during church in the pew. Two days before that I fed my son right next to a foam pit in a gymnastics facility during a horrible hail producing thunderstorm. He was hungry and people were moving mats around us to get ready to hunker down. No way was I going to be hunkered down for any amount of time with a crying, scared and hungry baby. I didn’t have my cover at gymnastics. Gasp…a boob.
We have all over-glamorized bosom bottles as sex objects rather than their intentional purpose. Don’t be desensitized by modern media but gasp when you see a boob feeding a baby at gymnastics. It’s just backwards. Come on America…feed your babies from your bosom bottles and forgettaboutit