LadyFlynt
Puritan Board Doctor
I'm guessing this means not necessarily an 'extra covering' like a blanket. This is how I nurse...nothing shows, but no blanket either.
NIP - Nursing in Public
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I'm guessing this means not necessarily an 'extra covering' like a blanket. This is how I nurse...nothing shows, but no blanket either.
Honor
de-cool
but unless you are covered you can not hide the area where the child attaches to the breast. plus a blanket doesn't have to be heavey and smother the child it can be a thin light and airy blanket.
I think some of my posts haven't been very clear though. *I* cannot nurse with a blanket and be modest. If it is hot out, I will not smother my child. My children usually cannot tolerate a blanket (I've only had one that did #6) and will keep knocking it down with their waving arms...particularly difficult when managing other toddlers and young children at the same time. And thus, I am more modest without a blanket than with. Some are more modest with a blanket and some without. Nursing in public does not mean that your breast is viewable(for some yes, because of child playing around or because of lack of practice...other reasons why it should not be dictated either way).
LadyFlynt
Puritan Board Doctor
Nail on the head.
LawrenceU
Puritan Board Doctor
I agree, but we are not talking about exposing them to the world. Nursing can be done with discretion. But, that doesn't always look the same.
he beholds
Puritan Board Doctor
But what is your view on women who don't cover and everything shows? If it's the same as most here, then there is really no debate--at least none that I see.
I liked Jessica's answer--be charitable on every side.
LawrenceU
Puritan Board Doctor
Bingo!
Notthemama1984
Puritan Board Post-Graduate
No offense, but alot of guys think dirty thoughts of every woman whether you are breast feeding or not.
he beholds
Puritan Board Doctor
Or whether we're clothed...
Notthemama1984
Puritan Board Post-Graduate
I find this argument an extreme cop out. Just because I find my wife's breast alluring does not mean that every set of boobs will cause me to sin.
Real men need to step up to the plate and say I refuse to allow my mind to wander.
I cannot control what goes on in your mind, but you can.
LadyFlynt
Puritan Board Doctor
No breast at all shows? how do you cover your breast? [Can I ask these questions, seems so wrong?] I'm trying to learn here too.
With modern clothing, there are a couple of options...most tops are loose enough to lift up just enough to latch a child on (even if mama bends over a bit for the initial latch) then the extra part of the shirt rests where baby and mama meet. (for those that have trouble with a bit of side waist showing, you can buy or make "bella bands" that look like you have a layered tank on underneath)
Also, there are now many made for nursing clothes and patterns that are put together as two layers with the bottom layer having a slit or slits for nursing.
Ready made company
Motherwear's Fashion Nursing Tops for Breastfeeding in comfort and style. (click on the "how does it work" tab to see how the garments, that look like regular clothing, are made specifically for nursing)
Pattern company
Elizabeth Lee Designs
-----Added 12/10/2008 at 11:32:40 EST-----
Yes you can and many do. And my children knock down ANY blanket put over them.
Romans922
Puritan Board Professor
You can control what goes on in your mind? I thought we were born in sin and our thoughts are evil continually apart from Christ. And in Christ, we continue in sin, we need the Holy Spirit. Can you control (fully) your mind? I don't think so. You are responsible for it, yes. You are to call on God to grant you control over your mind, but does that mean it is automatically happens? No. Process of sanctification. Saying, "I refuse to let my mind wander." is an arminian statement. It should be "God help me because apart from you I can do nothing. A man should discipline himself. Well, yes, but He needs the Holy Spirit to work in him. And I am sorry but young men are dumb and stupid and ignorant and don't think. Yes, sinners. Yes they need to flee from their sin, well but some don't. They are weaker. Help them out. Don't be a stumbling block to another. This is 100% a woman's responsibility, to be modest, not be a stumbling block, etc. And this is 100% a man's responsibility to flee from sin and not put himself in situations that tempt him, and to turn to God and call out to Him for help.
Sorry if this seems to be in a bad tone, it was not intended.
TimV
Puritanboard Botanist
Well, at 48 it is a bit easier. But I wasn't addressing my post to superman, and the example was me and my friends in our early 20's who preferred that in particular a young, blonde, lovely of form, green-eyed Australian woman would at least have sat in the back while baring her breasts......I'm sure that there were plenty of men that didn't mind, though......
Honor
de-cool
I get what you are saying but.... the child can move... you can become uncovered unknowingly... plus that little bit of fabric can be fascinating to a guy... I know my husband once commented about it when I caught him staring.... he said he was watching to see if he could catch a glimpse of something.... it was tantalizing for him.like peak-a-boo
with him it was ok... but to think that a stanger would/could be thinking the same thoughts... ewww
Romans922
Puritan Board Professor
No breast at all shows? how do you cover your breast? [Can I ask these questions, seems so wrong?] I'm trying to learn here too.
With modern clothing, there are a couple of options...most tops are loose enough to lift up just enough to latch a child on (even if mama bends over a bit for the initial latch) then the extra part of the shirt rests where baby and mama meet. (for those that have trouble with a bit of side waist showing, you can buy or make "bella bands" that look like you have a layered tank on underneath)
Also, there are now many made for nursing clothes and patterns that are put together as two layers with the bottom layer having a slit or slits for nursing.
Ready made company
Motherwear's Fashion Nursing Tops for Breastfeeding in comfort and style. (click on the "how does it work" tab to see how the garments, that look like regular clothing, are made specifically for nursing)
Pattern company
Elizabeth Lee Designs
-----Added 12/10/2008 at 11:32:40 EST-----
Yes you can and many do. And my children knock down ANY blanket put over them.
Thanks, that's helpful.
nicnap
Puritan Board Post-Graduate
TimV
Puritanboard Botanist
Yes, it happens fairly often. I suppose I should have clarified. I also have 7 kids, and all were nursed in church. We never used bottles for at least the first 6 months, and then only if my wife's milk dried up too soon. She used a blanket. One young woman we're friends with in a largely college age church has a blanket with like an apron string that she puts around her neck, and that frees her hands up.
I assumed the original subject dealt with a woman fully exposing herself, because as I said, it's fairly common.
Now for some humor, that Perg will get. I was 24 and in PNG straight from the US and when I got the village, most women were bare breasted. If a child was crying and wouldn't take his mom's breast, another woman would often grab the mother's breast and shake the nipple back and forth across the baby's mouth to entice the baby to feed and be quiet, even in church. I had to hide my laughter as I kept imagining what a such a scene would look like back in the States.
Spinningplates2
Puritan Board Freshman
No breast at all shows? how do you cover your breast? [Can I ask these questions, seems so wrong?] I'm trying to learn here too.
With modern clothing, there are a couple of options.
Dear Lady, I have read many of your posts and find them wonderful. I do have to question your desire to breastfeed with no concern for others privacy. Breastfeeding in public is a new habit for the Church in the United States. In the past it would be considered immodest to nurse a child in public. so can you m=name any other cultural habits that need to be changed or is it only breastfeeding?
I guess you can tell my wife covered when necessary and fed in private when she could. Our youngest stopped feeding about 12 years ago, so I guess we just missed the modern times.
LadyFlynt
Puritan Board Doctor
Yes. I was at a church even and was nursing a babe. Another mother was taking pictures. Most people around me (found out later, it was other mothers) and the mama taking the pictures thought the babe was sleeping in my arms. She ONLY second guessed herself because she had been a nursing mother herself, stopped right about when she was going to take the picture, came over and quietly asked if I was nursing or if the babe was asleep. I signaled that I was nursing and so she moved on elsewhere for pictures. I've done the same with another mother in a church setting...same mother, more than once, I thought her child was sleeping on her lap only to be told or realise later that she was actually nursing. No blanket either time for either of us.
I am aware that not all mamas can pull this off, just as I can't pull off keeping a blanket on (the tail of a sling, sometimes works).
TimV
Puritanboard Botanist
We sat where we wanted, but the blanket was large enough to cover everything up. I felt that was as closest to the optimum solution as a person's likely to get, as getting up to go to a nursing room can be disruptive as causing a man to hope for a glimpse, and the other issue of disrupting my wife's concentration by having to get up and step over legs in the pews.
Some thoughts:
It seems accepted by most all that breastfeeding is healthy.
Much drinking is not healthy.
If breastfeeding makes men stumble we should restrict it for the sake of a weaker brother,
But among the same crowd, many reject the same solution for an alcohol-crazed society.
Whereas breastfeeding is a blessing to families and drunkenness and drink is often an evil to families, women should remove themselves from public view while teetotalers need to be taught that there is nothing wrong with drinking and maybe we should just better educate themso that they know better.
We have a puritan's pub here despite weak brothers; why not start a breatfeeding forum?
-----Added 12/10/2008 at 12:27:21 EST-----
We had a church service a while back and one of the local toddlers walked up behind his topless mother and reached OVER the mother's shoulder, grabbed the boob and pulled it backwards back over the shoulder and stood there and suckled (he must have been 3 years old) while the mother sat unfazed trying to listen to the sermon.
Does modesty for breastfeeding also apply when the locals where I am at suckle their child on one breast and their piglet on the other?
It seems accepted by most all that breastfeeding is healthy.
Much drinking is not healthy.
If breastfeeding makes men stumble we should restrict it for the sake of a weaker brother,
But among the same crowd, many reject the same solution for an alcohol-crazed society.
Whereas breastfeeding is a blessing to families and drunkenness and drink is often an evil to families, women should remove themselves from public view while teetotalers need to be taught that there is nothing wrong with drinking and maybe we should just better educate themso that they know better.
We have a puritan's pub here despite weak brothers; why not start a breatfeeding forum?
-----Added 12/10/2008 at 12:27:21 EST-----
We had a church service a while back and one of the local toddlers walked up behind his topless mother and reached OVER the mother's shoulder, grabbed the boob and pulled it backwards back over the shoulder and stood there and suckled (he must have been 3 years old) while the mother sat unfazed trying to listen to the sermon.
Does modesty for breastfeeding also apply when the locals where I am at suckle their child on one breast and their piglet on the other?
LadyFlynt
Puritan Board Doctor
No breast at all shows? how do you cover your breast? [Can I ask these questions, seems so wrong?] I'm trying to learn here too.
With modern clothing, there are a couple of options.
Dear Lady, I have read many of your posts and find them wonderful. I do have to question your desire to breastfeed with no concern for others privacy. Breastfeeding in public is a new habit for the Church in the United States. In the past it would be considered immodest to nurse a child in public. so can you m=name any other cultural habits that need to be changed or is it only breastfeeding?
I guess you can tell my wife covered when necessary and fed in private when she could. Our youngest stopped feeding about 12 years ago, so I guess we just missed the modern times.
Actually, it isn't a "new habit". The "new habit" is to not nurse in church (yes, in the US). And I use the term "new" in a historical sense. Meaning that it was normal until the mid 1900's.
Again, I have no problem with a woman that wants to use/finds it easier to use a blanket. I believe it is wrong to humiliate a mother by insisting that she is being immodest to NOT use one or to say that all nursing should be done outside of the sanctuary.
It's not that I have no concern...it's that others seem to put their comfort zone before the need of a nursing child and the comfort of his/her mother. I believe it needs to go both ways. Are you aware of how often women, who are even covered with blankets, are asked to leave a store, sit in a restroom, harassed, or are publicly spoken to about how "disgusting" they are simply because they are NIPing? This is my issue.
*shrugs* I grew up with breastfeeding being normal. My stepdad would make comments to my mother while folding her laundry, but never was a comment made while nursing. My husband, grandfathers, my brothers, my sons, husbands of friends...pretty much everyone EXCEPT one grandfather...were able to separate sexual behaviour from non-sexual behaviour. One grandfather had hangups and he would walk out of the room grumbling...my mother was always covered with a blanket, but *gasp!* she was NURSING in HER living room!
With the one child that let me cover for nursing, I visited another church. I was sitting in the back, but still LEFT the sanctuary. I sat on a bench, facing a window, in an empty hallway AND was covered by my sling. STILL had a man from that church mention the nursery to me three times! (he saw my back from the foyer and came to "check on me") Not happening. I wanted to hear the sermon, that is why I was there, otherwise I should have just stayed home. The nursery (having been in there to change a diaper) was full of gossiping women, noisy children, and no sermon feed.
TimV, I have to ask...where in the States is it regularly happening that a mama has her full breast exposed while nursing or nursing in church? This I have not ever heard of except in a novel where it was used as a joke.
Pergy,
I have had my toddlers come up and try to do the same, thinking they were helping (not in church though, at home).
TimV
Puritanboard Botanist
Perhaps not regularly. In California I've seen it enough that it no longer shocks me.
Jessica, no, perg isn't jesting about women suckling pigs. Sometime if you want I'll describe sleeping in a traditional Highland PNG hut for you
Perg, a bit off topic, but in your area do traditional women greet men by flicking their manhood with their finger?
nicnap
Puritan Board Post-Graduate
Perhaps not regularly. In California I've seen it enough that it no longer shocks me.
Jessica, no, perg isn't jesting about women suckling pigs. Sometime if you want I'll describe sleeping in a traditional Highland PNG hut for you
Perg, a bit off topic, but in your area do traditional women greet men by flicking their manhood with their finger?
Glad my only overseas missions have been in Uganda...they do nurse openly, but there are no suckling pigs or flickings that occur.
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