True, but selectively chosen. Oscillococcinum 200C is the highest homeopathic dilution on the market. There are 1X (1:10), 2x(=1C=1:100) and 6X (=3C= 1:10^−6) remedies as well.
And one ounce is a HUGE amount of breastmilk to lose during nursing, one that would have most moms worried and checking with their doctor why the baby was throwing up while eating - a four month old is taking in 4-6 ounces at each feed. Think more like 5-10 drops of leaking, if that.
Not defending homeopathy, mind you. I’m a woo-woo herbalist, and even I think homeopathy is whack. But yes, breastmilk in a pool is quite literally a homeopathic dose, if only we could shake the pool 60 times.
Maybe homeopathy has the answer to this dilemma. Like cures like, right? So if we leak some breast milk into the pool, then have the lifeguards and other pool staff take it, maybe they’d stop being such babies.
I said no because I misread it as the 17-month-old being fed at the poolside. :smack: A four-month-old is totally different and I think I might even have seen it happen. Hell, I might even have done it myself. It just wasn’t a big deal when I took my daughter to swimming classes when she was a tiny baby. It’s a toddler pool - you’re just glad that everyone has actually put baby nappies on their kids. Breastfeeding your kid in the pool wouldn’t be what everyone would do, but it wouldn’t be that odd. Anything the baby might ingest from breastfeeding from a chlorine-soaked tit will be no worse than what they’ve ingested by splashing around in the water and blowing bubbles.
Also, waist-depth water? Yes, of course. How else is the baby supposed to float around in their armbands or their parents’ arms and get used to being out of their depth? It will be graduated, with the deep end around waist-depth for the parent. There might be a separate pool that is deeper and only intended for swimming lessons, but that would be the teaching pool, not the toddler pool.
Mine was similar. As you might know because I’ve evangelised baby swimming a lot over the years. When she was three her teacher took her and another girl to the “big pool” after their main lesson to swim lengths and they happily dogpaddled the whole way and back again and got their length (whatever metre it is) badges. Took another year before she mastered proper strokes. The slacker.
I was just at a party last weekend where a mother got out of the pool because she didn’t feel right breastfeeding in the pool. just another data point.
Although I suspect that the fact that it was kinda chilly also influenced her decision.
I’m a woman and, even though I’m all for women breastfeeding with no stigma, insisting on doing it in the middle of a public pool is a little obnoxious, IMHO. I realize that 20-somethings are especially self-absorbed (as are parents of babies/toddlers), but isn’t the attitude of, “You can’t tell me what to do” a little juvenile?
Seriously! Compromise, step to the side of the pool, and be gracious about accommodating people’s varying levels of comfort just like you hope others will do for you when you are in an airport/restaurant/mall/park and your kids are screaming/crying/whining/being pains in the asses.
The whole breast feeding mafia thing is getting annoying.
It is NOT about it being “natural”. Pissing and shitting is natural too. I don’t want to see you doing it though.
To me it is about decorum.
I am far, far from prudish. I love breasts/tits/boobs/jumblies…call them what you like. I am a big fan and love seeing them.
Nor is a baby breast feeding a bother to me whatsoever in and of itself. Knock yourself out.
It is the notion of some women that when they have the baby decorum and societal norms go out the window and the rest of society needs to be ok with them doing their thing.
My sister would breast feed in public but she always had a towel/blanket/whatever she would drape over her shoulder and the baby. Baby was totally cool with it, mom was happy, her brother (me) didn’t have to weird out seeing his sister’s boob. Win/Win/Win.
The issue is concern for the people around you. Where are you when breast feeding? Who is around you? What are the circumstances?
A little common sense and some common courtesy can go a long way and it DOES NOT have to deny the mother the ability to feed her baby!
To the OP if the mother in the pool is breast feeding do the kids need to move away and stop splashing each other?
As for feeding the baby in some situations where breast feeding might be a bad idea I see no reason why bottle feeding cannot suffice. Either the woman can plan ahead and pump or she can use formula.
Myself, my brother and sister were raised on 100% formula and we’re all fine…great even (we were all adopted). I cannot imagine bottle feeding once one a blue moon or, god forbid, formula is used will mess up the baby.
All mothers I have seen are prepared for anything with bags of shit…stuff…to deal with the young ones. Why not have some formula on hand? Why not pump in advance if she knows there might be an issue? If pumping does not work then back to formula. If she refuses formula then why is finding a discreet area to feed the baby “wrong”?
It’s a bodily fluid and if some drips into the water other people are going to be exposed to it. She should stop being selfish and just get out of the damn pool.
Common sense is what you employ when you have some actual experience with the process. Breast milk isn’t a bottomless keg available on tap; the available quantities are based on supply and demand. If the baby feeds upon waking, there probably won’t be enough left to fill a bottle before a noontime feeding, so “pump before you leave the house you uncooth harlot” isn’t physically possible for most mothers excepting those who pump daily in order to stimulate an oversupply. (A time consuming, uncomfortable, and tedious process. I speak from experience.)
A nursing mother needs to empty her breasts on a regular schedule as well, or her breasts will become painful and engorged, and her breasts will leak. Profusely. I spent many outings expressing milk into a sink or quietly pumping in a smelly, filthy bathroom stall just to relieve the pressure due to an oversupply problem. A nursing mother needs to nurse as frequently as her infant needs to eat. It’s part of the wiring; milk is expensive to produce, and the calories required to manufacture enough milk to sustain another person is an enormous burden on the body. Infant and mom work together to keep the supply going by feeding on a timely schedule. A timely schedule which may not suit your Victorian sensibilities, but it must happen nonetheless.
Since you claim personal experience with formula, how we’ll do you think you would have taken to a random breast popped into your mouth if you became hungry on an outing with your family? I suspect you would have spit the breast out and created a startling ruckus until you were provided with the food and bottle you were accustomed to. Your advice to mothers to be prepared to plug in a hard cold bottle of a foreign substance to a child conditioned to pulling warm milk from a familiar, comforting breast is laughable. When and if you become a parent, you’ll find out quickly that babies aren’t simple machines. Breast and formula aren’t always interchangeable, especially for an exclusively breast fed infant. And formula comes in several varieties because many infants are made sick by various ingredients such as soy, extra iron, etc. Finding a formula that provides nutrition without making a child sick or fussy is a process, sometimes a painful and expensive process. For the infant, the mother, and overly concerned onlookers.
Look, I didn’t nurse in a pool, and I’d be far more worried about keeping an infant warm and safe from rowdy swimmers than a bit of milk in the water or perish the thought: a roll of fat boob visible above an infant’s mouth. The choice to nurse in the pool seems an immature one at best and I’d probably have offered the young woman a chair and helped her out of the pool. But you have this all wrong. Nursing mothers operate on instinct millions of years in the making. Baby cries: baby gets sustenance. It’s worked so fabulously for so long that formula has only been a norm rather than a last resort for fifty or so years. And nursing works the world round, regardless of delicate, opinionated onlookers who create a scandal where none exists.
There is nothing “Victorian” about my sensibilities.
For instance I love nudity. Think it is great and I have no issue with it. It is not “Victorian” though to expect and want people to be dressed at work.
Everything poops but it is not “Victorian” to want a divider in the stall of a bathroom. Me not wanting to see someone else taking a dump is not prudish on my part.
It is not “Victorian” of me to not want to see your breast while I am eating dinner in a restaurant.
This militant “I should be allowed to breast feed anywhere and so I will breast feed anywhere I damn well feel like” over rides the need for common courtesy and decorum.
If you were the Matron of Honor at a wedding and it was feeding time would you breast feed on the dais while the couple are taking their vows? I doubt it. You’d make allowance for the situation.
Having a baby changes things. You know the routine of you and your baby and you know where you will be going for the day so you plan ahead. Going out to dinner? Why not plan it between breast feedings? You said mother and baby are on a schedule with this so make use of that. It is a rare dinner that lasts more than two hours.
If not that then something else. Is there something wrong with covering the baby and your breast with a blanket/towel if you must breast feed at a restaurant?
When you are in public common courtesy should prevail. I am not saying breast feeding mothers should be relegated to out-houses. I am saying they need to have some concern for the others around them and make some allowance for the situation. Breast feeding in a pool with others splashing and goofing around intrudes on others. Breast feeding in a restaurant is unappetizing and off-putting to other patrons. Calling it beautiful and natural doesn’t change that.
I see no reason why some effort on the part of the mothers shouldn’t be made to account for others around them when they are in public. As with many things I believe there is a happy middle ground to be had here. One where mothers are not shoved into alleys to breast feed and one where I can swim without concern for a baby breast feeding in the pool.
Sexualizing a breastfeeding mother and infant is the epitome of a Victorian attitude.
It isn’t sanitary to share space and air with neighboring users of the toilet, and breastfeeding isn’t remotely comparable to urination, vomiting, or defecation. Your comparison of breastfeeding to elimination is inaccurate and crude.
Assuming you don’t stare rudely at other patrons, apply the same decorum to nursing mothers. Find another place to rest your gaze and enjoy your peaceful, quiet meal that isn’t disrupted by a crying, hungry infant.
There is nothing militant about conducting oneself inside the confines of the law. Not sure what country or state you reside in, but in most Western states, breastfeeding is protected by law, and you should be thankful that your dinner is only being interrupted by a small sliver of breast rather than a crying infant. People in positions to study and consider the consequences of discouraging breastfeeding have determined that making the public environment hospitable to nursing encourages healthier parenting choices. I trust their judgment. You’re just some uptight guy with no parenting experience making unreasonable demands on others.
My family and I keep our own schedule, and I suggest you attend to yours. I’m not about to restructure our daily activities to suit your agenda.
I can’t speak for other posters or protestors, but I haven’t seen anyone claim that breastfeeding is beautiful nor has anyone threatened to force your gaze. And I believe you are wrong about “most patrons” because while I nursed (covered up for my comfort; not yours) I was constantly fielding compliments from strangers who applauded breastfeeding, especially from mothers and fathers who had experience in the difficulties and pitfalls of nursing, namely people who lacked the ability to avert their gaze or mind their own business.
You want middle ground? Look away, enjoy your meal in peace and quiet, and take pleasure in the fact that the breastfed infant is quiet and content in the hands of attentive parents and not yelling or running wild in the restaurant.
“Women should be allowed to breastfeed anywhere” isn’t just something “militant” women think; it’s the law in 45 states. You could always move to one of the other 5 if this bothers you so much, although even those 5 have some laws protecting the right of women to breastfeed, so if your goal is to get through life without ever seeing a breast while you’re eating, you may have to invest in a blindfold. Sorry, man.
I agree that comparing breastfeeding to elimination is part of the problem.
Breastfeeding should be more like (not exactly like, but more like) blowing your nose. You *can *choose to do that privately if you’re more comfortable with that, but there’s no social pressure to pack up your things and run to the bathroom if your nose happens to start running in the park. You’re graciously allowed to tend to the needs of your body (or your child’s body, if he’s the one who needs a tissue) without having to hide it from anyone.
(Where the analogy falls down, of course, is that mucus does carry germs and tends to be a good way to spread disease…so breastfeeding should really be even *less *socially condemned than blowing your nose in public, if we were logical about these things.)
Where did I do that? I made a statement about nudity and it wasn’t even sexual in nature. I said I love nudity. Period. Full stop. No mention of sex. No mention of breast feeding. Your preconceptions are getting ahead of you.
It isn’t sanitary? Guys stand next to each other at urinals with no separator all the time. You are certainly sharing the air in the bathroom divider or no. I do not see how someone sitting two feet away from you is particularly unsanitary. You are sitting on a toilet someone else previously used with no problem.
And comparing breast feeding to elimination is fine when the point being made is that it is “natural”. Lots of things are natural. That is not an argument. It is a statement and provides no sense of the rightness or wrongness of something.
So, I am in a restaurant and need to accommodate you? Thanks but no. If you are in my sight line then “averting my gaze” is putting the onus on me for something you chose to do.
Really?
As for “militant” it is often a self applied label some women choose.
When your plans impinge on mine then it is a problem and needs to be reconciled.
See, here it is again. I am the one you expect should be inconvenienced by YOUR choices. You feel no need to meet even halfway. To hell with me and all the other patrons. You have no regard for them whatsoever. Those who do not like it all need to turn their heads or get out of the pool. Fuck em.
It is this complete disregard you feel for the rest of the public that is shitty.
Yeah, those Coloreds had complete and utter disregard for the rest of the public, wanting to piss in a toilet that was marked “Whites Only,” too. Couldn’t they understand how obnoxious that was?
It’s not a public health issue. It’s only a social issue because our great grandfathers made it one. Yes, I want to change that, just like we’ve changed other illogical social norms and unjust laws.
So you love seeing breasts for the purpose of your entertainment, but deeply offended if you spy them being used for their intended purpose of nourishing an infant. That, sir, is sexualization. Whatever did you think you were saying there?
Your rights begin where mine end, is the more applicable statement.
I find your complete disregard of a nursing parent’s laws, rights, and intentions to be shitty. I find your wholehearted approval of nudity for the sole purpose of your sexual titillation and vilification of the sight of a breastfeeding infant shitty. I find your total disregard of public health and the benefits of breastfeeding ill-informed and well, shitty.
Respect the laws which protect a nursing family. And respect the privacy of a nursing mother and look elsewhere just as you would when confronted with any other attractive feature or nuisance. Any nursing mother is going to place her infant’s comfort and well-being far above the prudish demands of a stranger, and when and if you become a parent you will do the same.
Oscillococcinum 200C is the highest homeopathic dilution on the market. There are 1X (1:10), 2x(=1C=1:100) and 6X (=3C= 1:10^−6) remedies as well.
