Because breastfeeding is cool!

I'm a huge advocate of breastfeeding your little one.  If I had it my way, every baby would be breastfed.  The scientifically-back benefits are numerous and impressive.  I breastfed Monkey until he was 14 months and we only stopped then because he was going to start daycare and I didn't want to pump anymore.  If he had it his way, I think he would still be breastfeeding.

When we were breastfeeding, I commonly did it out in public.  If my baby was hungry, I fed him.  When doing it out in public I often used a hooter hider.  I didn't do this because of my own modesty (which I think I might have some somewhere...), but because of the looks people would give me when they saw me nursing.  Especially when he got older and people would give me the look that clearly said "why are you still nursing a child that old?"  I don't know when 12 months became too old to nurse, but I got the hider so we could nurse in comfort without all of the rude stares or questions.  However, Monkey hated the hider.  In the summer, he would get hot under it.  He didn't like being unable to see what was going around him.  Instead of enjoying our 20 minutes of bonding, it became a battle to keep the damn hider over at least half of us.

Then today, a friend of mine posted this website on facebook: www.ifbreastfeedingoffendsyou.org  The title made me laugh something fierce.  Then I read today's post on the site and I stopped laughing.  It was such an interesting article I needed to share it and I hope you will take the time to read it.  The history of how formula companies have undermined breastfeeding is a scary thing.  I believe if more people were educated about the benefits of breastfeeding and the societal attitudes against a woman openly feeding her child the way nature intended were changed, breastfeeding in public wouldn't require the damn hider that made it such a tedious process for us.