An open letter to the Pro-Breastfeeding Waiter at Harvester

Dear Harvester Waiter

You probably don’t remember me amongst your 100’s of customers every week, but I will remember you and your positive pro-breastfeeding attitude for a long time to come.

Breastfeeding in public can be a nerve wracking and stressful thing for a mum sometimes, especially when you see so many horror stories on social media about mums being confronted by people in public and being asked to leave or stop whilst feeding in establishments. But when your a breastfeeding mum, you have no choice but to feed in public sometimes as you have to feed your baby if they are hungry. Plus with breastfeed babies they are feed on demand so you cant always judge when they might get hungry. But I refuse to feed my little boy in a toilet or hide at home for doing the best thing I can do for him!

When we visited your restaurant we were seated in the open seating area and for a few moments I did worry about how I would feed my little man should he decide he was hungry. I am a fairly confident feeder these days after 6 months of breast feeding (9 months now!) but I still get nervous when in such a busy public place. So when Elian did decide he wanted a feed I attempted to use a muslin as a makeshift cover, but being 6 months old he isn’t much of a fan of being covered and often pulls it off his head, which is what he did.

When you came to clear our table you weren’t phased for one second by the fact I was breastfeeding, you weren’t embarrassed and you didn’t try to avoid talking to me as often happens. Many waiters and waitresses seem embarrassed when they notice Im feeding and will say things like “Ill come back when your finished” or will avoid clearing our table as if I am doing something that shouldn’t be viewed by other people. But your attitude was a breath of fresh air. You cleared the table quite happily, chatting to me about how your partner had breastfeed your little one and how you thought it was great I was comfortable to do it in public as so many mums bottle feed because of this. You said you’d tell your partner as she would be so happy that another mum was comfortable enough to feed whilst in the restaurant. And you looked at me! You made eye contact! Which might sound like a basic thing, but so often people try not to look at breastfeeding mum, as if its shameful.

We had a lovely conversation and not for one moment did I feel uncomfortable or awkward about the fact I was feeding, you made me relax and feel like I really was doing the best thing for my little boy. So thank you! Thank you for normalising something that really should be totally natural in society, but sadly isn’t. Your attitude towards breastfeeding was refreshing! So I thank you and applaud you for being a normal, genuine, pro-breastfeeding man and I hope there are more people like you. I will happily visit and feed at your harvester again.

Part of me is sad that something like this even has to be mentioned and applauded as really breastfeeding should be acceptable in public, but it just isn’t at the moment. Hopefully having more people like this waiter will make it easier for mums to chose to breastfeed if they want to.