Legoland Apologizes Over Employees Attempt To Relocate Breastfeeding Mom

Lego officials have publicly apologized for an incident that happened at their Legoland Winter Haven, Florida location between a breastfeeding mother and a park employee.

According to Kelly Sabourin, 39, she was watching two of her children play while nursing her 2-year-old daughter Keigin when she was approached by a Legoland employee who told her she had to move.

According to Sabourin the Legoland employees walked up to her and her friend Susan Williams and said they had to relocate because she couldn’t breastfeed in front of other guests. Kelly held her ground and the employee stood by her side, blocking the breastfeeding mother from the rest of the room and her own children until she finished feeding her child.

Susan told WTSP:

“I was shocked. I’ve never experienced first-hand someone being asked to stop nursing at a family-friendly place like Legoland.”

Kelly added:

“She was blocking me from the rest of the room. It’s something I celebrate, I love doing with my child, and all of a sudden I’m being led to believe what I’m doing is shameful that I need to hide it in some room instead of making it a normal everyday thing especially when they’re are using the phrase ‘family-friendly place'”.

The strangest part of the incident is that it happened in the Legoland Baby Care Center which features a changing area, a bottle warming center and a kid-friendly bathroom.

Speaking of the incident Legoland publicist Jacquelyn Wallace noted:

“We allow breastfeeding moms to nurse anywhere throughout the park but we’ve created these nursing bays.” She adds, “Each bay has a white rocking chair for mom, a foot stool, a small rocking chair for another child and an electrical outlet for charging phones or any other need.”

Wallace went on to admit that when sharing news of the new Baby Center with park employees and the company’s “moms can nurse anywhere” policy there was “a lapse in communication” between management and Legoland employees.

She adds:

“We were actively promoting this facility to our employees to share with our guests. We failed to remind our employees our policy is to allow mothers to feed their children anywhere and however they choose.”

In fact the company didn’t really have a choice, according to Florida law 383.015 on Maternal and Infant Health Care:

A mother may breastfeed her baby in any location, public or private, where the mother is otherwise authorized to be, irrespective of whether or not the nipple of the mother’s breast is covered during or incidental to the breastfeeding.

For its part Legoland has taken full responsibility for the incident and has promised to make breastfeeding mothers feel comfortable in their facilities.

Do you believe that Legoland acted correctly in quickly taking responsibility for its employees actions and then remedying the situation publicly?