I’ve been breastfeeding in public for over 2 years now and based on the stories that circulate in the media this whole time I was prepared to get disapproving looks or comments.
I’ve gotten none. No one has ever said anything or looked negatively at it.
That is good news.
I’ve also gotten a few smiles, nods and thumbs up. But I’ve never gotten a single comment.
Till today. So I guess it’s a big deal.
Maybe it was just a st Patricks day atmosphere and all the drinking that I assume goes on early in the morning, but…
I was sitting on a bench breastfeeding Lexi after the parade today when a man in his 50s was walking by. He respectfully waved at us and then passing by, cheerfully said “Carry on!”
-“Will do!” – I answered excitedly matching his tone.
That sort of cheered me up. My first APPROVING comment! Maybe breastfeeding in Public isn’t so looked down upon, as media seems to make us believe.
In fact I’ve never had anyone say that they got a bad comment in public. Usually it comes from people close enough that they (erroneously) feel comfortable to say rude things. Or Internet, of course. In both cases they should STFU.
So what’s your experience with NIP? Has anyone gotten bad looks or comments?
P.s. This post was brought to you courtesy of not having an Instagram account to waste my time on while we are driving home. If you followed me there, I’m sorry I bailed. But it makes more sense to me. I’ll write a post about my reasons next week 🙂
Cheers and happy St Patrick’s!
Nice! That’s great!!
You left instagram?!!! Whaaaaa!!!!! I was hoping you just were busy or something. But yay on the positive NIP experience!
Cute post! And how awesome of that guy.
I noticed your instagram account was gone – how come? I loved all the photos and videos you shared on there 🙁
That’s great! I’m glad you’re not hearing negative comments about NIP. It’s super annoying…but as long as people keep doing it, perhaps maybe some day, it will just be the norm 🙂
How sad is it that your own family will have negative comments but complete strangers will cheer you on?
Glad you had a positive NIP comment!
We were at the aquarium and my friend was carrying her baby in the Ergo, there was a blanket kind of covering his head. The funny thing is she was not even nursing at the time, his head was just near her boob and a man walking by said “Look at that girl, just breastfeeding all out in the open”. She did not hear the comment, only my husband. About 5 minutes later, she did start nursing him while we were walking around. She is so confident and doesn’t care what anyone says anyhow!
I’ve never received a negative comment, but I’ve definitely received my fair share of disapproving looks. What I’ve noticed is that a lot of it had to do with the part of the country I was living in at the time. We used to live in Boston (sniff sniff…I really miss it!), and not once did I receive anything except encouraging smiles. No one batted an eye at me NIP. Then we moved to Louisiana, and that was a different story. In my experience, people in the South do not have a positive view of breastfeeding (or at least, they don’t have a positive view of NIP). I’ve received eye rolls, snide comments muttered under someone’s breath, and pointed stares. It doesn’t faze me at all-I simply stare the person down until they look away. It’s upsetting, though. I feel as though from the very minute we see the second line appear on the pregnancy test, we’re told “breast is best!!!!!” and woe be to any mother who can’t BF, or doesn’t want to BF. But then as soon as the baby arrives, well, you’d better not have the nerve to nurse the baby where anyone can see you doing it. Just ridiculous.
I’ve glad you’ve had such a positive experience, though! 🙂
That is a very nice comment!
I live in an area in NC where women breastfeed in public all of the time. We go to the neighborhood park, museum, or coffee shop, and see four year olds nursing. I saw a woman breastfeeding in a bar once. It is not a big deal at all around here. I have never heard of anyone I know in real life being confronted about breastfeeding in public. I am assuming that this varies a lot geographically.
I think it is great and I wish all parents had complete support and acceptance regardless of how they feed their babies. Nobody should have to cover up if they don’t want to while nursing, and no one should get side eye for giving a baby formula, either.
So you nurse your 2 year old without a blanket or any kind of cover out in public? Your breasts are exposed? You’ve never had any kind of negative comment about that or any child saying something to you? That’s amazing!
Your breasts are never exposed when you breastfeed lol. The child covers up pretty much everything.
Maybe yours aren’t, but my crazy distracted one-year old leaves me hanging out high and dry all the time when we’re nursing, ESPECIALLY when we’re in public because that’s when he’s more likely to see or hear something interesting and pull away to look around. And he wouldn’t dream of letting me cover anything with a blanket or nursing cover. Ah well!
I can generally tell when she’s about to unlatch and have my hand ready to cover it 🙂
I definitely made my son follow nursing rules since he was around 9-10 months old. If he showed a behavior that I didn’t like, I unlatched him. It wasn’t a huge deal because I started young and he learned very quickly that he can’t play with my other boob, pull my hair, look around, etc while nursing. Like Elena, I could tell when he was about to stop nursing and had my hand or burp cloth ready. It seriously takes a half a second to pull down or up my shirt.
Totally unrelated, but it took me until way too long in this post to realize you were abbreviating “Nursing In Public” and not about to tell us a specific comment someone made about your nipples. I think my I’m-clearly-not-yet-a-parent is showing haha. Glad you’ve had such support even from strangers in your breastfeeding journey!
It’s funny because I myself often think of nipples when I see NIP in media and even as I was writing about this I was pretty aware that some (many?) people won’t get it till half way down the post but thought it was too funny not to keep it.
What a nice experience! I’ve only ever received blatantly negative comments from acquaintances/friends, but in those few instances I used the opportunity to discuss and educate gently. I don’t think I swayed them towards my point of view (NIP and full-term breastfeeding), but hopefully the next time they encounter someone NIP, whether stranger of friend, they will be kind. What I DO experience are uncomfortable glances or disapproving looks on occasion, but more often than not, people can’t even tell I’m nursing.
Yeah like I said, the only rudeness comes from people who feel comfortable enough to tell you what they think. I’m glad you use that time to let them know what’s up. 🙂
I rarely check blogs anymore and just happened to have a quiet sunday morning! I’m in school, working, 20 weeks pregnant, and busy with an almost 4 year old. Blogs had to go for me to get enough time in the day.
Anyhow….. I nursed my son until he self-weaned at 3.5! Same as you, I never got a single negative comment while NIP. He didn’t do it in public much after he was 18 months old unless he was tired and wanted to nap. But still, nobody ever said anything rude. I did have a few friends ask how long he would nurse- in what was perceived to be a totally curious question. Most of them knew that I weaned at 4 and they saw how perfectly normal I am. I have read things online with people calling it abuse or I’ve seen the stories of moms being told not to nurse. Idk, it just makes me somewhat wonder what all of the circumstances were. I nursed a LOT until he was 18 months because he didn’t eat solids really. It was more common for me to be nursing than not nursing. We don’t stay at home much either, so there were plenty of chances with many strangers to say something. But they didn’t because it wasn’t offensive. Nobody saw my nipples and his head covered most of it.
This is great. You know, I hate to admit this, but in recent weeks I’ve been reluctant to NIP because now that I have a toddler I am worried about the comments. Lame, huh?
Oh, and you left IG before I could answer your question about our sleep issues. Nothing that you aren’t familiar with, I imagine, except we don’t co-sleep (his choice), so wakeups are just getting so brutal 🙁
Totally lame!!! Haha. Jk, your entitled to your feelings and options just like nip girls are. Though I would totally encourage you to say “fuck it”! 🙂 who cares if someone says something. Plus this is something you should be proud of! It’s not an easy task to bf a baby into toddlerhood.
Anyways, thanks for the answer on sleep issues. I don’t think I would be able to deal with it if we weren’t co sleeping. Not having to get up and go somewhere every time she wakes up is what saves my butt at night.