After almost four months of practice, I have almost mastered the art of breastfeeding in public (except when caught off-guard wearing silly dresses). And what an art it is.

I rarely keep track of feeding times now and only remember when Aurora starts showing signs of being hungry (whining, short, sharp grunting noises accompanied by arching her back). I then have about 10 minutes before she revs it up a notch.

As soon as I get her into my arms she can smell the milk and starts suckling at my top and screaming when she finds nothing there. Chaos ensues. There’s always a lot of prep work involved; fiddling around under tops trying to unclasp bras, pull up or down tops while trying not to flash any nipple, and hoping the breast pad doesn’t go flying across the room.

There’s also the toss-up between more faff of tucking in a muslin to avoid the dreaded leaky boob situation or chance it without the muslin that may lead to wet patches. The trick is not to wear a tight white top like I did last week in the Debenhams cafe; it doesn’t make for a good look when opting for no muslin.

Then there’s the issue of who you are with when feeding. If there are any males present, aside from my husband or dad, it always makes it awkward, regardless of how well I know them. They either don’t make eye contact, choosing to talk to the wall next to you, or pretend that everything is normal, making extra eye contact resulting in a funny stare.

Occasionally the eye wanders down to the boob area. I can literally hear them thinking to themselves: ‘Act normal, retain eye contact. Oh no! I just looked at the boob area. Oh goodness, she just caught me looking, now she thinks I’m trying to sneak a peek. Maybe I should apologise. No, that will make it awkward, oh no, I just looked again...”

Then comes the time when Aurora decides she’s finished, or as is the case more recently, catching me off-guard and pulling away suddenly, causing me to yelp, attracting more unwanted attention before I realise my boob is on show. Or when she’s messing around thrashing her head from side to side, latching on for a second before pulling off and thrashing around again.

I sometimes have to put my head down my jumper and tell her to stop being silly otherwise she’s not getting any more.

This makes it hard to maintain enough concentration to keep a conversation flowing. It is especially hard when that person is not only a male but your old boss at the Christmas lunch.

Trying to sustain a work-related, grown-up conversation, eye contact, dignity and any hope for a job at the end of maternity leave is a skill worthy of any woman’s CV.

But I refuse to let breastfeeding in public stop me from doing anything — which has led to a list of slightly unconventional and sometimes unpleasant places I’ve fed Aurora. Trying not to listen to other women going to the toilet on a busy Friday night in a social club for half an hour is not a nice experience, let me tell you.

If all that wasn’t enough, the thought of someone coming over and telling you to cover up because it’s making other customers feel uncomfortable would make some mums think twice before leaving the house.

Fortunately, the Claridges incident for Louise Burns hasn’t happened to me or my other breastfeeding mum friends. After asking around, a change in public perception and more positive advertising of the breastfeeding-friendly logos would go miles in helping us all feel more comfortable.

However, there are plenty of benefits to breastfeeding, and the best one is that I can eat what I want which has been fantastic over the Christmas period. Never before have I stuffed myself like a pig for a month and stayed the same weight!

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