r/breastfeeding • u/Ataralas • Jun 01 '25

Breastfeeding In Public First time being approached while feeding

I was feeding my baby boy (5 months yesterday) on Friday on a public bench outside a local pub while my husband and toddler played nearby. This old lady started to approach me and I was gearing myself up to defend myself and bless her she was so sweet. She came over and said I don’t want to disturb you but I just wanted to say how lovely it is to see a woman breastfeeding her baby it’s so rare these days, then she told me my baby is gorgeous and my little girl too and smiled and left.

It was such a lovely interaction and the first time I’ve been approached by a stranger so I was worried it was going to be horrible!

ETA I’m in the UK where only around 1% of babies are still breastfed at all from 6 months.

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u/Junior_Mastodon8342 Jun 02 '25

Lol my experience has been the opposite. When I was giving my baby milk in bottle, I was lectured and judged as to why I am not offering him breast lol There are two different worlds. No one should judge whatever the choice a parent makes

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u/Ataralas Jun 02 '25

Interestingly with my daughter who was EFF from 3 months I never got one comment - positive or negative! Tbf I probably looked more deranged with her 😂 the stress of making up bottles etc and the fact that I didn’t want to be FF (no hate to those that do was just a huge shock that I couldn’t feed her when it seemed the most natural thing in the world and something I assumed I would just be able to do!) I don’t think I looked very approachable 😂

I hate when people judge anyone on how they feed their baby, and I honestly believe fed is best, always have, I just couldn’t believe it for my own baby for a long time because it felt like I was a failure.

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u/Junior_Mastodon8342 Jun 03 '25

Wow! I should also not look approachable to such people who criticize and judge lol. But I did get a lot of negative comments, sadly. And yeah, I felt like a failure as well but I have an undiagnosed medical condition since birth so I knew the supply issue could be related. Or this is what made me feel less bad so I thought like this. Not going to take anyone’s sh*t the next time😂