NURSING MUM DIARIES

I was devouring a chocolate doughnut with rainbow sprinkles at the coffee shop inside the mall, while wantonly eyeing the hazelnut glazed doughnut placed at the next table, wondering if I should have ordered that instead. Maybe I will, after I polish off this one! Nyomm nyomm…

My attention eventually shifted to the fortunate people who were eating that blessed doughnut. It was a small family, a baby no more than a couple months old and her proud parents. The mother had just whipped out a handy bottle with separate compartments for formula powder and water to ready the feed for her baby. The baby happily latched on to the bottle while her content parents continued to enjoy their cups of hot coffee.

It was the sale season, and the mall, perhaps one of biggest ones in the city, was brimming with people making a last ditch attempt to avail the unbelievable discounts. The offers were so good that they were able to entice the, otherwise reclusive, species of ‘new’ mothers to flock the mall in numbers larger than I had ever seen in that mall. I noticed a lot many of these parents sitting in various Coffee shops and random benches across the mall, feeding their babies with a bottle, and then continuing with their shopping spree while their baby was still gulping hungrily.

Like a typical Indian parent, I was instantly jealous and thought to myself. Look at sharmaji’s baby, he drinks milk from a bottle, why can’t my child do that. These people are seizing the best of the deals while I am spending half the time sprinting back and forth to my car parked in the basement to feed my hungry little caterpillar.

My caterpillar was 4 months old and exclusively breast fed until then. I had decided to give my kid the best gift a mother can give to her child. No, not an iPad. Mother’s milk. At first, I took pride in the fact that I was lucky to be able to nurse my child and didn’t have to take help of any formula milk. But then, after the initial sappy feeling subsided, I realized I had hardly ever stepped out of my home, except for the occasional visit to the pediatrician for vaccinations.  

You see, in my enthusiasm to keep my munchkin on the nutritious diet of mother’s milk, I had never thought of introducing her to the bottle. And so naturally, my entire day revolved around nursing her in the way that God had intended. By the time I tried to persuade my baby to feed on my expressed milk, from the bottle, she had already made up her mind that she preferred the nipple over the teat.

I cursed myself for having taken the advice of my pediatrician so ardently. For now, I had to suffer the not-so-subtle unapproving looks given by people, while I tried to soothe my child into nursing. The concept of a ‘baby care room’ or a ‘baby feeding room’ is yet to find an audience in this country, which considers bottle feeding as ‘westernization’, but ironically is not considerate towards breast feeding mothers either.  Maybe the society expects women with nursing babies to just stay home and out of sight!

Anyways, I needed to get some shopping done and so I went to this mall. And sure as hell, kiddo woke up and refused to calm down. I knew what I had to do. I sat, sweating and uncomfortable, in a desolate corner of a shop, while careful to cover up myself decently. That’s right, I am nursing my baby. Stare all you want, You, lady in the leopard print salwar kameez and the creepy guy passing by me the third time, eyes always directed at my little baby squirming under layers of covers. It’s the most natural response to the cry of a hungry child. At least it’s a better choice than your leopard prints! Ugh!

On another occasion, a flight attendant on a domestic carrier walked up to me and politely instructed me to NOT nurse the baby during take-off and landing! But! Everything I have read about flying with an infant, suggests that nursing helps. It helps calm the anxious baby as much as it helps prevent ear aches during pressure changes in the cabin. I was alarmed when I realized that I had been given this instruction not for the well-being of my infant but rather to keep my fellow passengers from the embarrassment of being under the same roof as an innocent babe suckling at her mother’s chest! The nerve of some people!

Maybe these ignorant fools don’t know about the governments initiative to promote and encourage breast feeding for the first 6 months of a baby’s life, but I am going to let my child exercise her right to nutritious food. That thing is not just about mid-day meals in schools you know.

Here’s hoping that our society will be a little more mature by the time my next one arrives. Heck, I don’t want to miss out on any fabulous deals, while I am shuttling between my parked car and the shops, for lack of feeding rooms. But more than that, I wish that women won’t have to choose formula over breast milk for their babies, just so they can buy a pair of shoes.

Share your own nursing experiences in the comments section!