Tips for Breastfeeding in an Amusement Park

Last summer, Derrick & I took our little family to 6 different states & visited a total of 10 different amusement parks (plus 1 indoor waterpark). With the success & growth of Derrick’s YouTube channel, we needed to visit new parks & ride new roller coasters so that he would have continued content to publish (and could continue to grow his channel!) Thankfully, it’s not a boring or mundane hobby & we all had a ton of fun on these trips!

Seriously, I would not suggest just anyone do what we did: driving a few hours, staying in a hotel, waking up & driving a few more hours, spending an entire day in an amusement park, followed by a little more driving, & another hotel stay – only to wake up the next day & do it all over again. It was a bit crazy – but we’re a bit crazy & so it worked! I have some of the sweetest memories from our trips last summer & I’m already looking forward to the trips we have in the works for 2020!

Here’s what made our long days in amusement parks tricky though: at the start of the summer & at the time of our first trip, Leander was just 5 months old. He was exclusively breastfed until he was 6 months old, and even after we introduced food to him, he still would nurse every 3-4 hours. If you’ve ever taken a breastfed baby anywhere in public, you know that when it’s time to nurse, it can be quite tricky to find a place to feed them. Especially as they get older, they get easily distracted, so a quiet & private location is a must.

Did you know that a lot of amusement parks have “Family Centers” with private rooms to breastfeed in?

I honestly did not know this! And, if you were visiting an amusement park without a breastfed baby, you’d likely never even realize that the amenity is there. Let’s be honest: most people who attend amusement parks aren’t coming with infants. But, there are a few of us (crazy) people out there & most parks are prepared to help us out with cozy, quiet, clean, and private places to breastfeed our babies.

I do say “most” parks – because 8 of the 10 parks we visited had rooms for nursing mothers (yep, that means 2 of the parks did not).

Research Before You Go

I learned very quickly not to just assume that an amusement park would have a breastfeeding room for Moms. I also learned very quickly that (most) amusement parks do not do a very good job of advertising these nursing areas, even if they do have them. A park might list a “Family Center” on the park map, but most parks did not list that there was a private room for breastfeeding within that “Family Center”.

The easiest way I found to figure out if an amusement park had a breastfeeding room, was to simply hop on their website & do a quick search. Most websites have a FAQ section – and that is where I would usually find if a park had a breastfeeding room. If I was unable to find the info I needed on the amusement park’s website, I would just Google the “park name” + “breastfeeding” and see what came up. Most of the time, I was able to find my answer pretty quickly.

For all the amusement parks we visited in 2019, the three Six Flags parks we visited were the only ones without breastfeeding rooms. Cedar Point, Sesame Place, Kennywood Park, Dutch Wonderland, and Lake Compounce all had designated places that were (for the most part) clearly marked, clean, and private places to nurse a baby.

Be Prepared

Even if I knew that an amusement park had a “Family Center” with a specific room to nurse in, I still packed my bag fully prepared for just about anything.

There is no real “standard” for nursing areas, so every park’s situation is completely different. For example, Sesame Place (being a park that caters specifically to young children) had the nicest nursing area I took advantage of. It was centrally located within the park, had large private “rooms”, it was air conditioned, and the chairs were delightfully large & “plush”.

On the other end of the spectrum, Kennywood Park (our home park & the park we frequent on a weekly basis in the summer) has a “nursing mother’s area”. It’s tucked behind the restrooms in Kiddieland – and it is simply a small space, with 2 rocking chairs, & an extra tall “fence” around it. If it is a hot day, you better believe it is smoldering in there. Additionally, they have a sign stating that no employees are “supposed” to be cutting thru the nursing mother’s area, but it leaves the impression that an employee might stroll through (and of all the times I used Kennywood’s nursing mother’s area this past summer, that did happen to me one time).

So, my advice is that just because an amusement park states that they have an area for breastfeeding, doesn’t mean it will be air conditioned or super private.

And honestly, as a breastfeeding Mom (on kid #2), I was simply happy to have a designated place to nurse my baby. On super hot summer days, air conditioning is definitely a huge perk though!

Plan Your Steps

You have to realize that if an amusement park has a breastfeeding room, they likely will only have one (or in the case of Cedar Point, because the park is so incredibly huge, they have 2). These rooms are not like restrooms, which you can typically find around every corner.

With that being said, you do have to be a bit strategic in planning your day at the amusement park around that “Family Center”. The last thing you want to do is be at one end of the park & need to nurse your baby, so you have to high-tail it all the way to the other side of the park to get back to the “Family Center”.

I’ll be honest: you walk a lot at amusement parks, but you’ll walk even more when you have a breastfed baby with you. Instead of simply moving from one area of the park to the next, I always had to be mindful of what time it was, when Leander would need to nurse next, and how far away I was from the “Family Center”. Sometimes, it just made sense to stay in one area of the park a little bit longer, because Leander was going to need to nurse soon & we were close to the designated breastfeeding rooms. As if you don’t have enough on your mind as a parent in an amusement park, right?

What About Amusement Parks that Don’t?

So, like I mentioned, we visited 10 amusement parks, and 3 of them did not have breastfeeding areas. What does one do in those situations? Knowing that I was going to need a quiet place to nurse Leander, I was constantly on the lookout for good “spots” – places that were out of the way & in the shade. I know some Moms don’t care at all & will just nurse out in the middle of the park – that’s great (and their right), but I definitely prefer a quieter, more private place.

With that in the back of my head, I was constantly looking for corners, benches, flower beds, or tables that I could sit & nurse Leander at. Only once did he need to nurse & I didn’t have a place already scoped out. So, my advice would be, keep your eyes peeled & you’ll be surprised what you see! I nursed Leander behind signage, in the corner of an outdoor restaurant (it was in between peak meal times, so no one was around), and on quiet benches that were not on the main path to main attractions.

The Bottom Line

If you find yourself going to an amusement park, or even several amusement parks (or 10 parks in my case), in the season when you have a tiny baby who needs to nurse, it’s okay. MOST amusement parks are prepared for you & your baby & have accommodations to help you & make your day at the park easier. If the park’s breastfeeding rooms are located within a “Family Center” – there are sweet people there who just want to coo over your baby & encourage you that you’re doing an amazing job (they’re usually the First Aid nurses). Of all the amusement parks we were in with nursing mothers’ areas, I never once had a bad experience. They were all clean, quiet, sweet places for me to spend a few moments feeding my baby.

And here’s the deal: the season of life that includes breastfeeding a tiny baby every few hours is very short – one summer at the most. So, even though we visited 10 parks in 2019 – that was it! We’ll visit a whole new round of amusement parks this summer, but Leander is already over a year old – he hardly nurses at all now, so the days of researching & preparing & looking for quiet places to nurse are already behind me. So, if you find yourself attending an amusement park with a breastfeeding baby & find it a bit stressful – chin up! Because most likely the next amusement park you attend, you’ll be putting that baby on rides instead of nursing them. Time flies by too fast.