The Role Of Dad In Breastfeeding

by LisaC

We put a lot of effort into supporting a mother and supporting her role in breastfeeding her baby, and quite rightly so. Mom is the source of milk and normally the primary caregiver for a baby because so many of his early needs have to do with feeding. it is her commitment that permits healthy breastfeeding to continue in the face of many obstacles.

However, a supportive dad is a big part of the parenting team and his efforts can help a mother to sustain the breastfeeding commitment as well as nurture their infant.
All too often when dealing with breastfeeding issues we tend to leave out the other half of the team - dad. It seems in our culture we sometimes expect fathers to magically bond with their children from across the room just because they don’t produce milk. A bond between father and child is not established by some mystical means the moment a child becomes old enough to play football as our culture sometimes appears to indicate. This bond is built from the earliest stages onward.

Dads can be involved in many ways as a parent for breastfed children from the very earliest stages. Though a father is not carrying around the built-in pacifier that mom does with her breasts, they can be a great source of comfort and provide interaction for the baby as well as give mother a few minutes rest.

In fact, in order to support a strong marriage, and the team parenting concept it is important to get dad involved as early as possible. How much dad is involved, and in what roles, will depend upon the individuals and what they are comfortable with and of course on their lifestyle.

For instance, regular stimulation of the nipples is important to maintain and build breast milk supply, but especially with working mothers, there comes a point when the nighttime feedings have become a burden. If the infant is of an age to be able to go several hours without feeding this is a perfect opportunity for further parental interaction for the involved dad in either the role of comforter to put baby back to sleep or to feed the infant from a bottle or cup.

If mom is working, then baby has already been introduced to an alternate means of feeding like a bottle or a sip a cup. Some couples have dad give the midnight feeding with breast milk that has been pumped and stored earlier. This gets dad directly involved and will also teach him the basics of handling pumped and stored breast milk. The idea here is to give a mother a few solid hours of sleep that she might not ordinarily get.this also provide the perfect bonding time for the father and the infant and establishes the father as a nurturer in the infant’s mind.This is not normally a good idea during the first few weeks after birth, but can work well for some parents after the infant is a few months old.

In other circumstances the parents may decide to avoid bottle feeding at any time even late night feeding. in that case, dad can get up in the middle of the night, when the hungry infant awakens and that perhaps change the baby’s diaper and bring them to the 24 hour buffet a that is mother. Doing this serves two purposes, as it establishes dad as a source of comfort and allows the mother an extra little bit of rest time.

Having dad give the occasional bath under the watchful eye of even the most nervous mother is another way to establish comfort in handling the infant for dad and permitting bonding that might not easily take place in our culture’s traditional mother and father roles.

The baby has many needs outside of diapers and feeding as they grow and the involved dad can participate by supplying many of these needs and providing relief for a stressed or tired mother, and of course the necessary interaction and bonding for a lifelong relationship between father and child.

Breastfeeding is not something dad can do but his involvement with an infant’s care especially during stressful times for mom will help establish his role as a nurturer and it will also support the concept of teamwork in parenting.

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