To boob or not to boob

As you may have gathered from previous posts we have decided to breastfeed Zachary - the key winners for this for us are the convenience and cheapness!! (as well of course of the health benefits for the both of us...) One of the downsides is that I am the only one who can do night feeds, but to be honest they haven't been too bad so far - there tends to be a feed sometime around 11 or 12, then again about 2ish, 4ish and then getting on for 7 which is kind of when we would be waking up anyway. Some nights the feeds have lasted about an hour in total (including nappy changes) but last night managed to get through all of them in about 25 minutes a piece! (I'm not really expecting it to last!)

The bit I was most concerned about before having Zachary was the whole feeding in public thing, and had thought that I would not really be keen. One of my school friends had a baby in September and is very gung ho about it - I get the feeling that she would be most strident in putting her view across if she ws ever told it was "not appropriate" for her to be feeding in a particular place. After all, most of the changing areas for babies are in toilets - if you are expected to feed in there as well, that's not really on - how many people do you know who would like to eat their meals on the toilet?!!

But...since giving birth and getting settled into the feeding, my attitude has changed somewhat. My boobs have now been on display for nursing staff at the hospital, the midwife, the health visitor and all my in-laws, so I'm really not feeling all that fussed about whipping one out in a public place. And if the boy's hungry (demonstrated by use of his "hungry mouth" - ie open mouth which he waves around vaguely in the hope it will land on a nipple, and into which he jams anything he can get hold of for a good suck - hands, cardigans, shoulders...)

To try and be slightly modest about the whole thing though, I've also splashed out and bought some new "nursing" tops from various maternity/baby catalogues. Most of them have been pretty good - working on the discreet boob peep-hole idea, which basically keeps most of me covered up while still allowing Zachary full access. One I bought though just has a line of poppers underneath my bust which allow the top to basically divide in two to create access. It has to be the most fiddly, awkward top in the world!!! Very nice as a top but sadly just too darn annoying to use again for feeding.