Helpful Information for Fathers
As a father, you have an important role in the life of a breastfeeding mother. Becoming involved in your partner's breastfeeding education can help to alleviate her fears and reservations, as well as your own.
How Can I be More Supportive of my Breastfeeding Partner or Family Member?
The most important thing that you can do to help your partner is to support her in her decision to breastfeed and help her avoid outside negative influences from extended family and friends or when nursing in public.
- Offer your partner comfort measures such as a drink, a footstool, or a pillow to use while nursing.
- Burp baby after a feeding.
- Change baby's diaper or bathe baby.
- Care for baby while your partner naps or showers.
- Help your partner feel positive by affirming her mothering, her beauty, and your love for her; offer a massage and show plenty of affection.
- Be realistic in your expectations, acknowledging that adjusting to parenthood can be overwhelming.
- Assist with or take over household responsibilities such as cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, or washing dishes.
- Sterilize breast pumps and bottles.
- When baby wakes up for middle of the night feedings, bring baby to your partner.
My baby will bond with my partner at each nursing. How can I achieve that same level of closeness?
Performing daily activities with your baby that are reserved for you alone will produce a special bond between you and your child. Take a walk or spend some time alone with your baby. Try making it a habit to be the one to burp your baby after your partner nurses. Your baby will become accustomed to being comforted by your body. Showering or bathing with baby (after the umbilical cord has fallen off) is also a great way to develop closeness between the two of you. Should your baby need to learn to take breast milk from a bottle, you are the best person to offer the first bottle.
How will breastfeeding affect our sex life?
Parenthood affects your sex life regardless of whether your partner breastfeeds. Exhaustion and lack of free time may have a dampening affect on your intimacy. Planned get-togethers are helpful; romantic words and gestures go a long way to create an amorous mood.
There is no harm in handling your partner's breasts during sex. As they are functioning to produce milk, they may occasionally be somewhat tender and can leak or spray milk when stimulated. Realize, however, that some women seem to get their "daily touching quota" through nursing and may wish to avoid excessive touching of the breasts during sex. Some fathers feel uncomfortable, too, because they perceive that the role of the breasts has changed. Talk about your feelings with your partner, and avoid activity that makes either of you uncomfortable. The shape of a woman's breasts may change, but this is due to pregnancy, not breastfeeding.
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