My wife nursed both our children. With the first one, she tried being “discrete”, in deference to the sensibilities of other people in public. This ended the day she found herself perched on a toilet in a mall department-store trying to feed our child. After that episode, she revised her definition of “discrete”, using a baby-blanket to shield herself and our child from the overly-curious. She nursed our children after that wherever they happened to be when they became hungry - in the mall, in restaurants, wherever. She got really, really good at not flashing passers-by, at controlling the odd slurping sounds, and generally at being a good public nursing mom.
The responses she got were interesting. Some people stared, as if apalled (more on that later). Some people would look at her cuddling her child, and smile, unaware of what was really going on. Then they would realize she was nursing, and that they had been looking at her longer than would be considered polite, and get all flustered. To these folks, she would just smile, Madonna-like (not that Madonna - the first one). Another subset of people would come up to her with “you-go-girl” type encouragement, as if she were making a political statement. This she found funny. The people who really made her wonder were the women who would approach and say things like "I think it’s wonderful you’re nursing your child. I wanted to, you know, but . . . " It’s like they felt compelled to apologize to a nursing mother for not having done so themselves.
One time, she was in a restaurant with a friend and our child. They were in a booth in a back corner of the restaurant, out of the way (this was a Ruby Tuesday). The kid got hungry so she pulled out the blanket, cuddled him up and started feeding him. Silently, discretely, carrying on her conversation with her friend. Nobody around them at other tables noticed, and nobody stopped eating.
Except one woman. A lady at another table did stop eating, put her fork down and just glared at my wife. My bride, not being one to make a public scene, pretended not to notice, but our friend looked at the woman and announced in a loud, outraged voice “my God! That woman is just STARING at us!”
Of course, everyone then stopped eating to look, first at my wife and our friend; then at the woman they were both now looking at with horror on their faces. Our child nursed away, happily oblivious, as the world stopped to regard with disain the rude staring lady. Most of the people in the place never figured out why the woman was staring at them. . .
This happened fifteen years ago, and we still laugh about it. A lot.