is a nursing room a good thing or bad? - Page 3

[Penuche]

I've posted this before, but I have a website listing nursing/mothers rooms around the country. Please, even if you don't ever use the rooms, if you know of a local room, send it in to [e-mail], and I'll post it on the site.

Nursing rooms were essential my mental health when my baby was a newborn. I was horribly uncomfortable NIP. Now that she's older and distracted at every passing noise, the rooms are a great way for me to be sure she's eating enough when we're out and about.

I think that if a mother is on the fence about nursing, and is uncomfortable NIP, then she may BF for a shorter period of time than if she knew she could go out and find privacy when she needed it.

[isabel rose]

Hey, some formmula feeders call what they do nursing the baby as well. My MIL says "& I got to nurse little O" when talking about giving my FF nephew his bottle.
BEST PARENT & BABY ROOM
Cubicle with big toilet & space for pushchair &washbasin
Cubicle with little toilet &washbasin &space for parent to help
Sealed nappy change cubciles with sealed bins & extractors
Fenced area for toddlers
Bottle heaters
Squishy sofas
2X curtained feeding cubicles with comfy chairs
it does exist!
Sometimes there is nowhere to sit without buying a drink, or toddler too distracted to BF, so these rooms should exist, but ppl should have freedom to BF wherever.

[ColeysMama]

Our mall has a nice nursing room - it has toys for older kids, a changing table, and a bathroom for mom or older kids (and I've used that bathroom when the regular women's room was being cleaned). The guy who used to be the mall manager has 10 kids, which might have something to do with it. I'm not sure if it was there before him, though.

I'd say that a nursing room could be either good or bad. It's great for shyer moms who aren't comfortable NIP. A lot of mamas don't want to nurse, or want to supplement when in public, because they're afraid of NIP. So in that sense, if all public places had nursing rooms (I like "mother room" better, btw), they might not see EBF as such a "nuisance."

On the other hand, it is sometimes expected that nursing mamas will use a nursing room just because it's there. Personally, I would rather nurse in a sling while I keep shopping than stop everything for 30 minutes or longer (when my ds was a newborn, he nursed AT LEAST 30 min ON EACH SIDE, every 2 hours! so going to the nursing room just wasn't an option, and I got over my shyness pretty quick). However, I don't think most people would be aware of a nursing room's existence. I doubt the average joe is going to notice it or realize what it is, kwim? And I also don't think that if someone gave you a hard time about it, and you took the issue to a mall manager (or whoever), they would tell you that you had to use it. Not if they had any sense about them, anyway.

[~*SugarMama*~]

I never used one with my first. I would just sit where ever I happened to be at the time to feed him. When my DD came along, I tried doing that....but with DS running around, the nursing room was often the better alternative because it kept him at least partially contained.

But...our local mall's "nursing room" doubles as a family bathroom. It has both the adult room, the toddler room and then the main area is where you will find the long couches for nursing. I hated having to use there and would try to just make sure that I always had someone else with me after the first episode to watch DS so I could nurse DD out in the open where all the formula feeding mamas were.