What other dads say about breastfeeding
And what does volleyball have to do with it?
As a Coach with Boot Camp for New Dads (BCND.org), I guide 3-hour conversations between guys expecting their first baby and dads who return with their 4-month-olds. A typical BCND workshop brings together 12 expectant, or Pending or Rookie dads with three “Vet Dads” and their babies. In these hands-on, high-dialog, “hold my daughter” sessions, Vet Dads answer questions, tell stories, and demonstrate fatherhood.
Over 18 years, I’ve learned to ask Vet Dads about breastfeeding support: they always answer with gravity.
Almost all Vet Dads agree emphatically that supporting mom around breastfeeding was a greater, more involved, more careful challenge than supporting her through the birth.
Fortunately, there is much partners (dads or other) can do, and much research to help guide them, including how partners can do it wrong. And this partnership begins proactively, starting well before the birth.
Download, print out and discuss the 3 page, heavily-researched PDF What Other Dads Say About Breastfeeding (below). This process document, reviewed by lactation specialists, mental health specialists and hospital administrators, is key to initiating and moving forward with this well. Then it will help users navigate this challenge as a team, providing numerous suggestions for before, during and after the birth.
NOTE: this PDF begins with a very candid discussion, based on thousands of Vet Dad descriptions, about how new moms feel about themselves in the early days and weeks of breastfeeding.
Other articles found on Stuff I Don’t Tell Expectant Dads (but they should know) include:
Steps to help both parents keep their lives after the baby arrives