Is It Legal to Breastfeed Your Baby in a Moving Car in Idaho?

Baby Basics 101

Long before a baby can talk, he or she will communicate through sound and movement. One of the most common ways they communicate their unmet needs is through crying; this is especially true when they're teething, tired, or hungry. That's Baby Basics: 101, right?

When they're teething, Infant Tylenol is a God-send. When they're tired, it's vitamin sleep to the rescue! When they're hungry, you pop a bottle or a boob in their little mouths, and let 'em go to town. Problems solved!

Babies Wait for No One

But if there's one thing parenting has taught us, it's that babies wait for no one. You learn pretty quickly that they're only on a schedule until they decide they're not.

So, what do you do when your newborn gets hungry while you're in the car? Now add rush hour traffic to the equation, two kids under 5, and a blood-curdling scream-cry emanating from the youngest of your brood.

Your other kids are knocked out, but the tea pot going off in the rear-facing car seat is on the verge of changing that. Hubby's behind the wheel giving you sympathy eyes because there's no place to pull over. You're still 40 minutes away from the house and the whistling tea pot triggered the launch sequence for your milk let-down.

Idaho on Breastfeeding in a Moving Car

Engorged and exhausted, you do the parenting equivalent of the unthinkable: you unstrap your six-week-old from the car seat and let the nursing games begin. No one can see you in the back seat, but you know they'd judge if they could. While it's hardly an ideal situation, you take comfort in knowing it's legal in Idaho to breastfeed a baby in a moving car.

They can judge you all they want, but you know Idaho statute 46-672 clearly states it's within a parent's right to remove their child from a car seat for the purpose of "nursing the child or attending to the child's other immediate physiological needs."

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