No Nursing In the Toddler Room?

The Lone Star Baby has pretty much given up nursing upon arrival at daycare...she nurses before we get out of bed and before we leave home in the morning and she wants her yogurt and her cup when we get to daycare...that's her routine. In the two months or so between when she turned a year old and when she moved up to the toddler room, I had also gradually cut back on going to nurse her at mid-day in the nursery. The daycare is very far from my work so it has always been hard to get there, but I also knew that it would be less convenient to do so when she moved up to the toddler room since they have quite a few scheduled activities and the children eat and nap together at the same time. So, really, I have never expected to do too much nursing in the toddler room anyway. On some days, however, I have very late meetings and such, and a late afternoon nursing before the Lone Star Baby spends the whole evening with Daddy is in order. Monday was the first of those occasions since the big move. I casually mentioned to the teacher when I dropped the Lone Star Baby off in the morning that I had a late meeting that day, so I would probably come and nurse the Lone Star Baby after their naptime before I had to go. We chatted a little more about various things and I left as usual.

When I returned that afternoon, there had apparently been Discussion.

The teacher told me politely that since their room was "open" (it has a door, the top part of which is left open, that opens out onto the same hallway as most of the rooms, while the nursery is in a separate hallway and has a completely closed door), I could go nurse in the chapel across the hall, where there were chairs and stuff. The Lone Star Baby and I went to nurse in the chapel. I was not at all mad at the teacher, as I doubted it came from her, but I really was sort of mad, as nursing is nothing that needs to be hidden and is something that I have a right to do anywhere. It didn't really even make sense...who were they hiding us from? Almost all the children in the toddler room began in the nursery and saw us nursing there as did their parents. All of the staff at the daycare are in and out of the nursery on a regular basis and they saw us nursing...what was different? Nothing, really, except that they simply did not expect nursing at the Lone Star Baby's age, I guess. No one else besides her had nursed in the nursery either, though, so that hardly seemed relevant.

I did not make a fuss. The toddler room teacher is a fantastic teacher and has to engage in way too much emotional work with way too many little people during the course of the day as it is. I appreciate her and do not want to rock her boat unnecessarily. The Lone Star Baby was perfectly happy to nurse in the chapel, so I let it go. I felt marginalized, though. I didn't like it.