The New Dad's Breastfeeding Support Manual: Starting Well

August 6, 2023 by R. Justin Freeman Leave a Comment

That’s just one quote I’ve encountered from a new mom which crystallizes a broad sentiment: Despite some popular conceptions, breastfeeding is difficult work, and breastfeeding support from partners is critical. One could be initially forgiven for thinking such an ancient, fundamental thing in the human experience would have pat answers by now, but breastfeeding somehow manages to be weirdly and wildly variable, and controversial if you go looking for opinions.

So, as a new dad, how do you help your partner start this journey well?

Having navigated these waters twice as the partner of a breastfeeding mom, I’ve got a few points of perspective I hope are helpful as you approach this experience together. My words here are directed to the partners of breastfeeding moms; I’m going to largely defer to more qualified voices than mine when it comes to the physiology, tactics, and mechanics of the actual breastfeeding and focus instead on how partners, particularly new dads, can make the process some percentage smoother.

In this, the first installment of this series, I’d like to discuss foundations. How do you get started as a breastfeeding wingman? How can you keep the lines of communication clear in what’s going to be a busy, stressful time for both of you and give solid breastfeeding support?

It might seem trite or obvious, but the easiest route to getting to the best place you can in feeding your baby is through good communication fundamentals. Talking – and listening! – at length with your partner will head off a legion of misunderstandings and disagreements. It’s incredibly important you be on the same page as your partner going into a breastfeeding journey.

And make no mistake, it is a journey.

This is where good breastfeeding support starts.

You will find yourselves up and down and sideways by turns depending on how things are going, and you’ll all three grow into your roles. It will take time, and it will be a process. But you need to start it the right way, with clear communication.

Just because 51% (or 99% for that matter) of breastfeeding mothers make a particular decision doesn’t necessarily mean anything for the three of you. Just because your mama did things a certain way doesn’t mean it’s right for your partner. Have a comprehensive conversation, ideally way before your baby is born. You’ll quickly find there’s no such thing as “common sense” choices when it comes to breastfeeding, so talk talk talk.

One of the nothings you should assume is whether your partner wishes to breastfeed at all. Among babies born in 2019 in the United States, almost 17% were never started on breastfeeding for a variety of reasons, so it’s not a given. While I’d encourage new parents, short a medical contraindication, to at least consider breastfeeding for the clear health benefits, the choice not to breastfeed is valid. As is the choice to do it for a limited amount of time. Sometimes the trade-offs of benefit between Mom and Baby favor ceasing early – or never starting.

This is also a choice you as the non-breastfeeding partner don’t, or at least shouldn’t rightly, have the final say in. You may have strong feelings about a desire for your partner to breastfeed or not breastfeed your child – and that’s fine. Please give them air and ensure she knows exactly what your thought process is on it.

But at the end of it, it’s her call. Breastfeeding can be a painful, exhausting, health-altering process, and it should not be something your partner is doing under duress. Conversely, it can be one of the most fulfilling things a new mother does for her baby and provide deep bonding time, so it shouldn’t be summarily vetoed from the outside by your insistences.

Presuming your partner is willing and able to breastfeed, it’s important to ensure you have the same ideas of what to expect going into this process. The first step in providing good breastfeeding support is ensuring neither of you are aspiring after ideals only attainable in ads and magazine photo shoots. Among the things you should discuss:

To a layperson, this process can seem fairly straightforward. Reveal boob, attach baby, let baby nurse, cover boob, burp baby, done.

…uh, right?

I mean, sometimes. Some moms and babies sync slickly and nurse with hardly an issue. But I would not count for one second on this being your partner’s experience. There can be a whole host of complications, some (but certainly not all) of which I’ll try to cover in this series. The result is that more than seven out of every ten new mothers have some sort of difficulty breastfeeding.

So it’s not just your partner, and she’s not being difficult or dramatic. Be understanding. The thought she might not able to do what only she can do – breastfeed your child – is intensely stressful. They will get plenty of judgment elsewhere, I promise. So be supportive here.

If most to all of your exposure to breastfeeding comes from marketing and advertisements – or worse, social media – proactively reframe your expectations about what it will look like now. In those venues, you might see a new mom with coiffed hair and pixel-perfect makeup nursing at the edge of what looks like an endless meadow, or a beaming mother nursing in a pristine nursery with a mix of moonlight and warm night lighting bathing her cherubic child.

Yeah…nah.

Breastfeeding is often monotonous at best, and drudgery (or even torture) at worst. Some people can get it in their mind that because breastfeeding is “natural,” it will thus come naturally. That’s not the measure of things, though. I mean, conceiving your baby was pretty “natural” too, but I’m guessing you invested a bit of focus and effort into it, no?

So you need to understand and be okay with the humdrum of feeding. Especially early on, you’re going to be in this seemingly endless cycle of pulling diapers off and bringing Baby back to feed and putting down for sleep and then back to diapers again. If your partner isn’t chipper through the process, that’s par for the course. Forgive the pun, but breastfeeding is draining.

Don’t take it personally, man. She’s tired!

From the outside looking in, it’s easy to convince yourself it is. I mean, free milk, right? But the hidden costs in breastfeeding are legion. From ointments and creams to nipple shields and specialty nursing bras, from breastfeeding-friendly apparel to breast pumps and the avalanche of supplies they require, the prospect of breastfeeding may not ultimately confer any financial savings in the end, depending on the totality of the circumstances – and that’s before you start jabbing a calculator on time expenditure and flexibility loss (given only your partner can breastfeed, whereas either of you can give formula).

This is where breastfeeding can feel just a little less magical. But this might be the reality of it, so be prepared.

So yes, breastfeeding can be cheaper than a full regimen of formula – if everything proceeds smoothly. But don’t make that blanket assumption going into it.

And it’s never without cost.

You’re probably going to bump into a measure of guilt as a non-feeding partner, because you’re often going to be the bearer of bad news:

Baby is hungry. Again.

Now you get to feel like a pro wrestling heel. Here you’ve got an infant who’s merely restless at best, but at worst sounds like two chimpanzees playing hot potato with a cat. And you’ve got no choice but to dump this bucket of miserable rage directly onto your bleary partner’s abused nipple and go trotting back to the locker room. As it were.

Sure, you give her some equivalent of a pat on the head, but the fact is you get to plod off to do something far less taxing than breastfeeding while she gets to work. Instead of self-flagellating, though, let it motivate you to express gratitude to your partner. You don’t need to get rote or formulaic about it or it’s not going to come across as genuine. But every now and again, let your partner know you see them:

“Hey, I just want you to know I really respect you for doing this. I know it’s hard.”“You’re never more beautiful to me than when you’re feeding our son.”“I know this is so tiring. I just want you to know I see you and love you.”

Give your partner a scrap of memory to put in the pocket of her mind and conjure when she’s alone and struggling. You know that random compliment you got like seven years ago you think about every 72 hours or so? Yeah, give her some of those. She’ll need them.

I realize this can seem like a lot. But while there can sometimes be a lot of moving pieces in breastfeeding, it’s usually the case that you as a couple will, ahem, find your flow.

And if you don’t?

Well, one of the recommendations you may get from your care providers is to pump breast milk. That requires a lot of extra considerations on top of what I’ve covered here, all of which I talk about in the next article in this series.

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This post was previously published on THEUNBOTHEREDFATHER.COM.

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Photo credit: iStock.com

Filed Under: Families, Featured Content Tagged With: breastfeeding, Justin Freeman, New Dad, newborn, parenting