Breastfeeding mum brought to tears by waitress' kind note

A breastfeeding mum was moved to tears after she received a note from a waitress thanking her for feeding her baby in a restaurant.

Isabelle Ames was recently enjoying an outing to a Snooze, an A.M. Eatery location in Gilbert, Arizona, with her 10-month-old daughter Charlotte when the little girl became hungry, the Daily Mail reports.

Instead of hiding herself away in a bathroom or stepping out to a car, Isabelle fed her daughter right there in the restaurant.

Moments later, she was approached by the waitress, named Erica, with a free serving of pancakes and a note. 

"Thank you for breastfeeding here, much love and respect," it read.

Isabelle was so floored by the kind gesture that she shared it on Instagram, writing: "I am still teary-eyed writing this hours later."

She added, alongside a photo of the note: "While at breakfast this morning I was doing my usual thing - trying to wrangle a very active ten-month-old while trying get at least one sip of my coffee."

That's when Charlotte became hungry. Isabelle began feeding her, revealing in her post that mother and daughter had both been sick and the little girl had six teeth come through, making breastfeeding difficult.

"When she finished, my server came over and said, 'this pancake is from me, to you. Here is a little note to explain why.' She then began to tell me how 'us mommas gotta look out for each other,'" Isabelle wrote.

At that point, the mum burst into tears and got up to give the "sweet stranger" a hug before crying some more.

In her post, Isabelle explained just why such a moment meant so much to her, writing: "Breastfeeding is one of the hardest things I have done, next to labour. No one prepares you for it, but everyone expects you to be excellent at it. You feel like a complete failure when it doesn't happen right away." 

Isabelle had her own struggles after Charlotte arrived, as the little girl wouldn't latch for the first two weeks of her life, then for four weeks after she had to use a nipple shield.

"It was not until about 6 weeks after she was born that she latched fo the first time and I was able to successfully breastfeed. I cried tears of relief and ecstatic joy," she said.

Despite that eventual success, she explained how she felt many moments of frustration, particularly in the days leading up to the incident in the restaurant as she struggled to find rest with a sick baby.

"But for a complete stranger to see me, and say 'thank you'. I felt like she was there on my journey the whole time, and she knew how many times I wanted to give up but I didn't," she said, adding that she often felt fearful of being harassed when she dared to breastfeed in public.

But, she said, that isn't what happened today. "Today I got love, respect and a free pancake."

- Daily Mail