At home I nurse in a glider (2nd choice) with a footstool that also glides – very comfy. Or in bed (1st choice) because I can lay down and relax, and my older son sometimes snuggles with us under the covers.

Out and about, I often would stop at Starbucks for a baby & me latte – I would get a steamed milk or herbal tea (I don’t drink caffeine) and sit in one of their comfy chairs to nurse. I also loved Borders’ chairs, and would do the same with their cafe. Advantage of Borders – the chairs are scattered all over the stores, so I often would pick one in an out-of-the-way section, like philosophy or history so we could have a little quiet time and DS could focus.

As for people who stare – I just ask politely, May I help you? I’ve only had one person confront me, to which I replied that I prefer that my children not eat in the bathroom, thank you. The more we shrink & hide, the more we invite comments. When you act as tho it is perfectly natural (which it is) then it ceases to become an issue. For those who still have a problem with it, just remember, Jesus was surely breastfed in public too :-)

As far as nursing out in public goes… if I was out and needed to nurse my son – I would nurse him in the back seat of the car as I could prop my arm up on his carseat.

For the record, nursing mothers have no guaranteed right to breast feed in the United States. Some individual states protect the right to breastfeed in public but many are silent on the subject (or simply exempt breastfeeding mothers from indecency laws). http://www.llli.org/Law/LawBills.html

It is fine to have special, designated places or chairs for those moms who are more shy, as long as the message is: feed here OR ANYWHERE you are comfortable.

I don’t think a mom should have to leave her table or her shopping just to feed her child–especially a newborn who may need to nurse every 1.5-2 hrs for 30 minutes at a time.

From a design perspective, I agree with the comments about the arms being too far out to really provide support and also the privacy wings not really doing much. And some sort of swivel support would have been nice, as well.

I also found the bit about the pink color to be amusing…I don’t find it cheery, myself, but hey…to each her own.

But I think that the point of this chair is more about drawing attention to the issue using design, which I fully support!

Blogged and linked up at MOMformation.com as well.

DH is very protective of me and my right to feed our baby in public – that being said, when women just plop their boobs out, it makes him uncomfortable so he always made sure that everything was tucked in just so, so everything was discreet.

When people made comments and he was there – he always took care of it.

I had my standard response of “would you prefer I let him starve?”….they never once answered.

At home, I always used a Brest friend nursing pillow that strapped around the waste and had back support. You can use this standing up or sitting down and in my case, in front of the computer or in my reclining glider. I felt the reclining feature was a huge plus for the exact reason suggested above. I napped in it while nursing an extremely annoyed baby at three in the morning, in the living room, far away from Daddy. When the baby was calmer, i’d nurse while lying down…….

Lindsey, I so wish i had been there with you when those ladies made the nursing comments!

The chair: doesn’t look very comfortable or very natural. I wouldn’t sit in it. I agree the armrests need to be wider also.

For that reason, my favorite place to publicly breastfeed was in the old egg chair (click on my name for a sample picture) at my local sci fi book store. The sides are enclosed, the interior is cushy, and the overall look is damned stylish. I would love to see a cluster of egg chairs in my local mall. They wouldn’t have to be designated “nursing chairs” because they are enclosed enough to offer women privacy, but cool enough that anybody would use them. Make it so!

I’m not sure if your comment about “forcing people to fit into my ideas of breastfeeding” was directed at me…but if it was…lemme ’splain.

When I breastfed in public, I always made sure to cover myself with a drape cloth if I wasn’t able to get to a private place. Nothing was ever exposed, as I was very cautious about letting anything “slip out”. I never used a boppy or anything cumbersome while out in public.

I got dirty looks and rude comments from many, many people…mostly old women…but I had one middle aged woman who told me “it was wrong to do in front of other children”…as if they could see or even cared about what I was doing. I was on the inside corner of a booth, and my husband was blocking me on the outside.

Making sure my son was eating and had enough food was more important to me than playing into people’s fears. Breastfeeding is a natural thing, I don’t flaunt my boobs and pull them out in public for all to see…but I don’t forgo feeding my children because I don’t have a private area. To me, that is more important.