New Mom Absolutely Horrified After Catching Her Daycare Provider Breastfeeding Her Baby

Raising a child is not easy – not that I think there’s anyone out there who would be crazy enough to think otherwise.

It’s especially hard when you’re a new parent. When you’re a new parent, you have to make decisions about things you’ve never had to think about before ever in your life. Whether or not you should feed your child using breastmilk or formula, is merely one of them.

Well, a new mother was recently shocked to her core and horrified after she found out a caregiver in the daycare she had been trusting with her child for months while she was at work… was secretly breastfeeding her baby. No…  really.

The anonymous parent wrote into a newspaper in order to seek advice about what she should do about this horrific act, from Daniel Mallory Ortberg during a “Dear Prudence” segment.

I’ve found it: the most insane Dear Prudie of all time. https://t.co/CoJWpNfMuU pic.twitter.com/nYsIE7JUvN

— Brooke Rogers (@bkerogers) February 21, 2019

She wrote:

“Q. My day care provider is being a boob, literally! I am a single mother of an adopted baby, and I am opting to formula-feed since I can’t lactate. I am a working mom as well, and found a home day care provider who seemed amazing—she has two kids of her own (one a little older than my daughter) and has run this home day care for five years or so.

The only bump in the road was on the first day when I pulled out the formula and bottles, and she wrinkled her nose and said, “You feed her that slop?” I ignored the barb (I’m used to it), gave a quick rundown, and went on my way. Two months later, this past Friday, I got off work early and decided to pick up my daughter early. There is a side door where parents can enter without knocking, so I did that. I started the sign-out process, and as I was doing so, the day care assistant walked by and saw me. She tried to engage me with conversation, but I wanted to get my daughter so I brushed by her. When I got to the area of the house where my daughter was, I about fell over. The day care provider was NURSING MY BABY!…”

The mother in question explains that she must feed her baby via a bottle, due to the fact that she is an adoptive mom, and so she can’t lactate which she explained also to the home daycare provider.

Already off to a bit of a shaky start, there was a hint of judgment from the carer when she first explained to her about the formula-feeding, as the daycare provider responded with:

“You feed her that slop?”

However… they moved on. The mother has been regularly dropping her baby off with this daycare provider for around two months now. She was actually very impressed with the standard of the care her baby had been receiving. The carer herself also has two kids of her own, one of whom was similarly aged to her own baby.

Recently, though, the mother went to pick up her child as per usual, but was completely shocked to find that the daycare provider had taken it upon herself to breastfeed this mother’s baby.

“I marched over, took the baby from her arms, and asked her if she was crazy. The provider said that she was saving my baby from chemicals I was trying to force into her body and I should thank her for doing it all these months! 

I didn’t say anything; I just grabbed the diaper bag and got the hell out of there.

But now I am not sure what to do. Obviously, I am not sending my daughter back there, but should I report her to the umbrella company she is under for home day cares, or should I make a huge blast on social media? My sister says I should send out texts to the parents that have kids there so they can do their own check-ins, but that is too much I think. Your thoughts?”

That is a completely horrifying, utterly traumatic thing to come across. And other readers certainly didn’t hold back on how they felt about it either:

Eww! https://t.co/Pvu1QAc9oL

— Rich Nice (@RichNice86) February 25, 2019

I would be doing time if a woman did that with my kid https://t.co/tC1SfhuJXz

— The Dumbest Blond (@beloved1ny) February 26, 2019

The first two questions in this advice column are in full CALLS THE COPS territory and not write to a stranger on the internet. YIKEShttps://t.co/q9r81PBDOA

— Sarah Rappaport (@SarahRapp) February 20, 2019

Many people can get pretty sensitive when it comes to breastfeeding vs. formula, and because of that it can be pretty dangerous territory. In all honesty, though, the truth is that both sides of the argument have good points to be made.

Breastfeeding is a perfectly natural process that we all need to stop forcibly censoring. It is indeed healthier for the child, so making parents hide in closets or bathrooms just so they’re able to feed their baby is totally wrong.

On the other hand, however, formula is considered a modern miracle which has saved lives and allows many families more freedom, with some even crediting it with mothers to be able to go back into work while fathers can be more involved in parenthood. Studies about the long term difference between bottle and breastfeeding are pretty much inconclusive at best.

While, yes, okay, breastfeeding has the nutritional edge, formula is perfectly fine at the end of the day, and even in certain instances, especially if it happens to be the fact that the mother is unable to breastfeed, as the above case where the child was adopted, it can be an absolute godsend for mother and child.

With that said, the issue at play here isn’t whether the mother should use formula vs breast milk. It’s the way her daycare provider betrayed her trust completely.

Ortberg gets right to the point saying,

“Oh my GOD. That is my first thought, is just: Oh, my GOD. If this isn’t worth reporting her to a supervising agency, I don’t know what is.” 

He points out that part of the daycare’s job is not just to watch the child in a way they might consider to be “treated well” but to the parents’ standards. To break that trust, especially in such an intimate way, is horrific.

“Yes, your baby is, in the long run, safe and sound. But the whole point of providing day care for working parents is saying, “You can trust me to keep your children safe and well–cared for, and I will act according to your wishes in your absence,” not “As soon as you walk out the door, I’m going to raise your child how I see fit.” 

He emphasizes that the daycare provider should be reported to authorities saying,

“This is a huge breach of trust, a total violation, and absolutely worth reporting. Please do it. If you’re not comfortable making a big splash on social media, that’s understandable—this is a very dramatic case, and I can imagine it making a lot of headlines that you might not want to be connected with, but she should absolutely be reported for this.”

While many could look past the formula vs breastfeeding debate, others overlooked the point entirely… which is so usually what often happens the minute someone is allowed to give their opinion freely on the internet.

…Crazy, right?

Anyway, the mother has gone ahead and said she would not send her daughter back there, which is completely understandable. However, it really shouldn’t take writing to strangers on the internet in order to figure out that she should 100% report that daycare provider. One can only hope that she has now, or will, take that step too.

The mother said she would not send her daughter back there, which is understandable. However, it shouldn’t take writing to an internet stranger to know she ought to report that daycare provider. Hopefully, she has taken that step now too.

 

 

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