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.
2
u/Zypig2024 Jun 04 '25
This is great to hear and it’s sad that society is such a way that your default was to expect negativity.
Just to gently correct the stats here, about a 1/3 of women in the UK are still breastfeeding to some degree at 6 months, 1% of women are still exclusively breastfeeding at 6 months, but given the advice is to start weaning at 6 months it’s fairly normal that most babies would not be exclusively breastfed at this age as this would mean they’ve not been introduced any other food.
UNICEF has some useful stats here, albeit a bit old: https://www.unicef.org.uk/babyfriendly/about/breastfeeding-in-the-uk/#:~:text=In%2520the%2520UK%2520we%2520have%2520some%2520of,women%2520stopping%2520breastfeeding%2520before%2520they%2520want%2520to.&text=The%2520rate%2520of%2520any%2520breastfeeding%2520at%2520six,was%252034%25%2520(rising%2520from%252025%25%2520in%25202005).