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Even Shy Moms Can Nurse in Public

© Jeri Carr

We went visiting out of town today, and on our drive home we pulled off the freeway to help our four year-old daughter Ellen find her pet rock that she had dropped. The area looked unfamiliar to me, but my husband commented, “We’ve been here before. When Ellen was a baby, we stopped here when we were looking for a place to nurse her.” He explained that we ended up going somewhere else because this place hadn’t been secluded enough for me.

Today, more than four years after the time he recollected, I laughed at the thought because just a few miles back I had nursed Calvin, our second child, in our car at a grocery store not caring who saw me. We began talking about how nervous I used to be about nursing in public, and I remembered our first long road trip with Ellen. During that trip, when it came time to nurse our sleepy newborn, we began looking for a reclusive place to park the car. We drove through the parking lot of a grocery store, and I anxiously told my husband that it had too many people in it. We looked some more and finally chose an empty church parking lot.

Nursing my baby while sitting in our car in a busy parking lot doesn’t make me nervous anymore, and I’ve breastfed my children in many public places. I admit, though, that I still don’t feel comfortable nursing anywhere at anytime, but remembering how fearful I used to be helped me realize how much my confidence has grown, and my experience has shown me that having the confidence to nurse in public can make life much easier and more pleasant for a nursing mom and her child. After all, no one wants to eat in the bathroom.

Breastfeeding is the natural way to comfort and feed our babies, so why shouldn’t we be able to nurse them where we want to and when they need it? I believe those words with all my heart, but the confidence it takes to nurse in public doesn’t come easily to some of us, so I’ve put together some confidence-building suggestions for mothers who would like to nurse in public, but who are nervous about it.

1. Latch on in private. Latching on can be awkward in the early weeks, but it will soon become second nature. Until you feel comfortable getting baby attached to the breast in public, one option is to go to a private place to do it; then come out and sit down. Or you can ask a friend to sit in front of you or hold up a blanket for you while your baby latches on.

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