| It is common for young babies to want to nurse somewhere between one and three hourly, and not with the same gap each time. Unless the breasts are stimulated they will not continue to produce milk. This is why women without children do not have milk and why a mother can relactate if her recently weaned child becomes ill and returns to nursing. It takes at least three weeks to get used to being a parent, to learn your baby’s communication signals and to establish what your baby’s feeding habits are. All this whether you are breastfeeding or not. Breastfeeding also takes about this length of time to establish and many worried new parents find the extra responsibility of breastfeeding more than they can handle on top of everything else. First I would say that it is best not to make any major life decision during the first few weeks with your new baby. I believe that breastfeeding is one of those decisions that you live with for the rest of your life. I say this because as a breastfeeding counsellor I speak to many grandmothers of grown children, often of the mothers I am counselling at the time, and it is something they always remember - and often regret if they didn’t persevere (in getting the help they needed - many tried as well as they could, but received incorrect information). This is an important time in the rôle of supportive ‘breastfeeding’ fathers. If you know your partner planned to breastfeed before your baby was born and you are having difficulties, resist the temptation to dive for the most expedient solution to getting the baby fed today (a bottle of formula?), and find help. You do not have to struggle on alone. She may be cross with you months later if you don’t. This can be an emotional roller coaster of a time for you both and it is the dad’s job to stand between the mother and the outside world at this time, to support her in what you know she will be happy with in years to come. Traditionally childbirth is a time when families rally around and support the new parents. Often couples live a long way away from their families. Sometimes their families have only unsuccessful experiences of breastfeeding and feel that it is pointless to try. | |
