No matter how hard we have tried to evolve and make men and woman “equal” there is still a significant difference between the sexes and one of those difference is breastmilk. The bottom line is that women have it and men don’t. Since studies show that breastmilk is best for the baby, it becomes the mother’s job, not the father’s. Yes it is true that mothers can pump their milk and put it into a bottle, but the way babies develop best is to get the breastmilk directly from the breast. So how does the father fit into the breastfeeding scene? Here are a few breastfeeding tips for dads to help create a great breastfeeding environment for mom and babe.

• Breastfeeding is a learned behavior for both the mother and the baby so Dad needs to be patient and supportive as he learns the ropes.
• Dad need to know that breastfeeding is not supposed to be painful, so if you see Mom crying or cringing every time she latches the baby on, please find her a competent lactation consultant to teach her how to latch her baby on ‘pain-free.’
• It is often hard for a woman to get up and burp her baby, a great thing to do is offer to burp the baby for Mom. Most dads become ‘master baby burpers.’
• Changing the baby’s diaper will also be helpful for the breastfeeding mom. Women often struggle to find their ‘perfect’ breastfeeding position so it is difficult for the mother to get up losing that ‘perfect’ position to change the baby’s diaper.
• Women have to nurse babies every 1-3 hours which turns out to be 8-12 feeds in a 24 hr period. Encourage Mom to sometimes take a break from the baby and offer to hold the baby while she takes a shower or sits calmly to eat a meal. Most moms feel they need to be there for their baby’s every minute of the day and forget to take time for themselves. You’d be amazed at how rejuvenated Mom will feel if she takes a 15 minute shower and knows her baby is being well taken care of.

Don’t forget how wonderful a foot or shoulder massage would be for Mom. Moms usually sit or lay in contorted positions when they are first learning how to nurse properly. Most of my clients complain are of arm or shoulder pain to me as much as nipple pain. Massage releases chemicals in the body that relax and invigorate the body. Mom will forever be thankful to you for that relaxing massage : )

So, you feel it is time to wean your baby and you are wondering what the best way to approach weaning is. A lot depends on the age of your child; babies under the age of six months will usually transition quite easily to the bottle, while older babies will tend to protest. As a babies age, they begin to realize that their relationship with the breast is more than just nutritive; this is when things become a little tricky. Babies are smart, and if they are gaining weight and feeling satisfied, they will most likely protest when their mother tries to offer them a bottle; especially if they see their mom standing there with breasts filled with milk. Before we go into a few methods of weaning, let’s review a few things first.

A baby can nurse from a mother successfully up until four years of age—I understand that this is not the ‘norm’ in our modern society, but the woman’s body will produce healthful milk filled with vitamins and nutrients until the baby is age four. If you decide to wean early, it is important to ask yourself a few questions:

• “Is this what I feel is intuitively correct, or are others influencing me?”
• “Has my baby stopped gaining the weight that she was gaining before?”
• “Am I taking a medication my doctors has told me I cannot continue breastfeeding with?”

(Dr. Thomas Hale has a book that discusses which medications are safe while you are breastfeeding and unfortunately most doctors do not know this information).

Let’s also discuss some of the common reasons that women rely on when they wean prematurely and unnecessarily:

• You are going back to work– If you are going back to work you do not need to wean. In this case, the first mistaken thought is that the breast-pump must replace the breast if mom is going to be free for the work-place. And since many women are not successful with pumping milk from their breasts, they feel that if they are going back to work full-time, they have to quit nursing altogether. [It is important to note that one reason why women do not pump well, even though they often have an ample supply of breast milk, is because there are only a few flange sizes available for breast pumps, and often women cannot find the proper flange size that fits their particular shaped breasts.] However, if a woman has established her breastfeeding properly, and the baby is thriving on the breast; she does not have to quit nursing if she cannot pump successfully for work, or at work. When it is time to go back to work, you can still continue breastfeeding in the mornings before work, when you come home from work, and during the night. Even if you do not pump during your working hours, your body will still produce enough milk during the time you have provided for nursing your baby. And if you want to, you can nurse exclusively on the weekends, because the breast does not ‘store’ milk from feed to feed, rather it is made immediately as the baby compresses the breast. Fresh milk is produced as the baby is suckling, so you can still produce milk on your days off.
• Pregnancy– You do not have to wean if you become pregnant. Most woman can breastfeed after they become pregnant. If your body is still producing milk, you can nurse all the way through your pregnancy. Your body can safely produce milk for the baby and also leave enough nutrients for the growing fetus. While some women’s first sign of pregnancy is either decreased milk supply or intense nipple pain—that is not caused by yeast infection, if you do not have either one of these challenges, then you can continue breastfeeding without complications. However, I do suggest that women stop breastfeeding by the seventh month of the pregnancy, in order to give the older infant a chance to find other comforts, and to avoid jealousy with the new baby. In general, I personally do not think that tandem nursing is the best choice. I feel that the dynamic and intimate relationship you have with a baby is a special time that helps the child develop properly and builds self-confidence. In contrast, I have found in my practice that the older infant tends to use the breastfeeding manipulatively and uses the breast as a way of getting attention from the mother, which allows for increased jealousy toward the new baby!
• Baby has teeth-If your baby has teeth you do not have to wean. Most babies will learn very quickly how to nurse with their new teeth, without hurting their mothers. If your baby is biting you and using you as a teething ring, the best way to handle this problem is to look into your baby’s eyes, when she bites you, and say firmly, ”No biting”. Next, put your baby down safely—on a blanket on the floor, or in a baby seat—and walk out of the room for a moment. Then walk back into the room, pick up the baby and while looking into the baby’s eyes state that biting hurts you; then continue nursing the baby. Babies are very smart and will learn quickly that biting you while nursing is not part of your relationship. Unfortunately, the usual pattern of events and reactions are: when baby bites mom, mom screams in pain, which draws a shocked look on a baby’s face—a look of confusion, which mother attempts to sooth with a kiss. However, mom’s loving approach only reinforces the bad behavior, rather than shut it down. Consider too that a mom’s scream can be accompanied by a funny or oddly contorted face, which often makes a baby laugh, and which now establishes the pattern of: yell, funny face, laugh and kiss—which baby looks forward to repeating! Therefore, the best way to stop the biting from becoming a habit is to stop the behavior quickly after the first bite. And know that kissing your baby after a bite is inappropriate, and only reinforces the wrong message.

Given the possibilities for continued breastfeeding, it is important to speak with a qualified lactation consultant, to help find other potential solutions to your problem; besides the weaning option. But if you really feel you must wean, let’s go over a few rules, because you will need to cut down slowly, since you are producing more milk than you think.

• Cut down to two feeds a day.
• When you are down to two feeds a day, use ice and cabbage to reduce the swelling in your breasts.
• Ice your breasts six times a day for ten minutes intervals.
• Wear cabbage in your bra throughout the day. Using green cabbage, crunch and break the leaves in your hand, and place them against your skin, inside of your bra. Wear the leaves until the smell of cabbage gets to you.
• Don’t just take away breastfeeding suddenly. Change is difficult for most people, including your baby. Make sure to speak with your infant, no matter how old the baby is, explaining the process that you and she are going through. All of us would like clear explanations of the changes in our lives.
• After you have reduced the nursing to one feed a day, put an herb or oil on the nipple area that changes the taste of the milk, preferably to one that the baby will not like. This is not cruel. In this way, the child makes a decision, on her own, to stop that final daily nursing session. If a child is well loved and taken care of, then it is best for the child to make that final choice, rather than have mom take it away from her. This is a universal method that is employed in many cultures.
• Some suggested nipple applications are olive oil with a little black pepper or aloe vera.

Weaning your baby is often difficult for both the mother and the baby. Sometimes weaning is the best choice for the mother, sometimes it is the best choice for the baby. Just make sure you are weaning for the right reason; instead of weaning from misinformation.

Most women can provide enough milk for their baby, so the concept of “low milk supply” is often a misunderstanding of what is really going on. When women come into my office complaining of low milk supply, they usually are not managing their breastfeeding properly, latching incorrectly or have a baby with a suckling disorder. I would venture to say, that, if the breastfeeding is being managed correctly (meaning, not putting the baby on a schedule), and the woman still feels she does not have enough milk; it is usually the baby is that is having an issue and not the mother. Women who have babies with suckling disorders are often confused—feeling that they are doing everything correctly. They ‘feel’ that the baby is latched on properly, and they ‘believe’ the baby is taking in milk, but they are shocked when the baby is weighed before and after nursing, and the digital scale which can tell how much the baby is taking in, barely moves. If the problem is with the baby’s latch or the baby’s suckle, most proficient lactation consultants can teach the woman how to fix these problems.

In rare cases, when it truly is the mother with the problem, it would tend to be from one of the following conditions:

• Insufficient glandular tissue
• Retained placenta
• C-section
• Thyroid problems
• Hashimoto’s thyroid inflammation
• Sheehan syndrome

 

I will now briefly discuss the above conditions to clarify what they mean.

Insufficient glandular tissue is a condition in which the straw-like tubes in the breast that carry the milk, called ducts, never grew properly during adolescence. This means that the breasts were never properly formed, and even with the use of herbs and supplements, excess pumping, or in the event that it were possible to place the baby on the breast 24/7, this woman will never produce more milk—this is a true breast condition. And here are a few very clear signs to help identify insufficient glandular tissue: the breasts are asymmetrical—although all women have slightly different shaped breasts, here one breast is noticeably larger or different than the other in shape and size; the breasts are situated so widely apart on the body, that the woman does not have a cleavage; and occasionally the breasts can be triangular in shape and pointing downward, or tubular in shape; the breasts do not grow or change shape very much during pregnancy, as would be expected, and they do not appear to fill up with milk on the third day post-partum. With this condition the quality of the breastmilk is fine; it is the quantity that is missing. In general, my clients with this breast condition, who choose to breastfeed their babies, will supplement with formula till the child is past one year old, but each case will be different and will require supervision by a professional to make sure that the infant is gaining enough weight.

Retained placenta– Retained placenta means that part of the placenta or fragments of the membranes are left behind in the uterus after delivery. If small fragments of placenta or membrane are retained, the body’s signal to trigger the release of hormones necessary to produce milk will not be properly activated often causing low milk supply. A woman with this condition will usually begin to suddenly bleed very profusely after her bleeding has slowed down. Woman usually get very frightened by this sudden gush of blood, but the good news is that after the body has removed the left over fragments the woman usually will feel a her breasts filling up with milk. Sometimes women with this condition will require a DNC to clean out her uterus.

C-sections– Often a woman after a C-section will not have her milk ‘come-in’ till day five unlike woman with vaginal births who’s milk comes in by day three. I wish women would be informed of this in the hospital after they birth by cesarean section so they can feed their babies in alternative ways (i.e. finger-feeding, spoon or cup feeding) as they are waiting for their milk to ‘come-in.’ Another problem for mom’s who had a C-section is that often these babies spend more time in the nursery and are given a lot of bottles and then suffer from nipple confusion and are not willing or even able to take the breast properly even after the milk has come in.

Low thyroid-Many woman with low thyroid levels will struggle with milk production. Testing for low thyroid levels are controversial because sometimes women’s blood work appears to be within normal range, but when they begin to be treated for hypothyroidism they feel an increase in their breastmilk production. Women who are already taking synthroid during their pregnancies must get their levels checked right after birth because their need for more of less of the medication may change post-partum. If your blood levels appear fine and your baby has been checked by a lactation consultant and the baby is nursing properly and you are still not producing enough milk another way to check your thyroid function is with a basel thermometer. This method of testing is done by taking your Take your temperature every morning when you first wake up, preferably before you move. If your temperature is lower than 98.0 chances are your milk may increase with some thyroid boosting supplements.

Hashimato disease– is an autoimmune disease that affects the thyroid. With this condition the immune system makes antibodies that damage thyroid cells and interfere with their ability to make thyroid hormone. Often for postpartum woman this is a temporary state. Hashimoto’s disease can be hard to diagnose during pregnancy because a normal pregnancy and hashimato often have the same symptoms: weight gain, and fatigue. If you test positive for this condition medications such as levothyroxine work well and often can help the woman begin to produce breastmilk. For more information on this condition you can contact womenshealth.gov.

Sheehan syndrome- happens after the woman has lost a lot of blood after the birth of her baby. Blood loss that exceeds the normal range for vaginal birth (up to 500 cc) or cesarean birth (up to 1,000 cc) can place a mother at risk for low milk supply. This condition is rare, but often overlooked by the medical profession. This amount of blood lose can stop her pituitary gland to stop functioning normally. It’s the pituitary job to secrete the milk making hormones. Often this is only a temporary condition and with this condition it is important to set up a pumping schedule, eating a lot of healthy foods and vegetables and working with a professional. Other signs of Sheehan syndrome besides low milk supply often are: low blood pressure, hypoglycemia, weakness and dizziness, hoarse voice, joint pain, abdominal pain and Constipation.

Here is a question my clients often ask:

Do nursing babies need to drink the same amount at each feed just like formula babies do?

When a baby is nursing, rather than being bottle-fed, the baby will take in a different amount of liquid at each feed. In a twenty-four hour period, a baby needs to take in a certain amount of total ounces and a certain amount of total calories in order to thrive, but a nursing baby will take in a different amount of milk at each individual feed, depending on the infant’s hunger and mood. When an infant is bottle fed, the caregiver will pour the exact amount of formula into a bottle at each feed and expect the baby to drink the entire poured amount. Even if the child turns his head a way, the caregiver will do her best to try to “force” the child to eat the amount in the bottle. With nursing, the mother’s body does not display “ounces”; so the typical, healthy baby is allowed to take in whatever amount he wants and needs. (Babies that are premature or have a suckling disorder will need to have a different protocol to insure that they receive enough milk at each feed.)

So for example, a six week old baby might take in 2.4 ounces at one feed, 3 ounces at the next feed and only 1.8 ounces during the following feed.

So, how do we know if this baby has taken in that ‘certain amount of total ounces and a certain amount of total calories in order to thrive’, that was mentioned earlier? As a general rule, the thing to remember is, “what goes in must come out”; therefore, looking for a content baby and by counting the amount of soiled diapers her baby is producing, a nursing mother can gage how their nursing is going. As long as the baby is producing six to eight wet and dirty diapers in a twenty-four hour period, the nursing mother can stop worrying about “how much the baby is getting” and, with confidence, focus instead on her baby’s happiness (be sure to occasionally monitor periodic growth on a competent digital scale).

Sara Chana Silverstein is a mother of 7 and lives and works in Brooklyn. She is a board certified lactation consultant, classical homeopath, and herbalist. She has helped over 5,000 babies breastfeed and treats chronic ear infections, and other childhood ailments.

“I believe that the natural path for a woman who decides to have children is to breastfeed them. Girls must be educated to understand that breastfeeding, where possible, is not only psychologically and physiologically advantageous for the infant but amazingly healing, balancing and fulfilling for the mother. Girls must be taught that they can pursue the career they want without having to sacrifice childbirth and breastfeeding.”
— Sara Chana Silverstein

Sara Chana Silverstein is a Brooklyn-based, international board-certified lactation consultant, birthing instructor, classical homeopath, herbalist, businesswoman, wife and mother of seven children.

Sara Chana empowers and teaches thousands of women, many of whom were told their babies would never breastfeed, how to improve their breastfeeding experience. She shatters breastfeeding and birthing myths, and encourages women to make smart choices while guiding them in the art of juggling breastfeeding with a career. In her 15 years of practice she has strengthened women by educating them on how to treat and heal their children naturally, and how to ask the proper questions of their doctors, ensuring that they themselves and their children receive the most comprehensive medical care.

She is a birthing instructor and consultant to many obstetricians, midwives, and pediatricians in the New York metropolitan area as well as an adult education teacher, columnist, and community advocate for women and children. Sara is a highly sought-after public speaker who is funny, provocative, and exciting.