The topic of bottles and bonding keeps on coming up on virtually every discussion forum that I frequent.
“I need to pump and bottle feed / formula feed so my daughter can bond with her father.” one woman will say. A dad on twitter might talk about how he’s jealous of the bond that his son has with his mother, and how he thinks breastfeeding interferes with his ability to bond with his son. And another mom on Cafemom was talking about how her husband wanted her to switch to formula because her husband wanted to “help out”.. But she also talked about how her husband didn’t help with solid feedings, didn’t help with diaper changes or baths.
The bottles = bonding for dad… Is a myth.
Bottles do not make a bond. Feeding does not make a bond. Interaction with baby makes a bond. And there are many things that you can do with a newborn to create a wonderful bond.
Doubt that? Let me remind you of that study that was done with monkeys. The monkey was given an option between two mother-substitutes. A wire substitute that offered food, and a snuggly substitute that offered none.
The monkey preferred the warm snuggly substitute over the substitute with the bottle.
So if you’re blaming your wife’s breastfeeding for your lack of bonding, or if your husband is saying that he wants to be able to give the baby bottles…
It ain’t gonna work.
Bottles are a bonding myth. A myth that is repeated and perpetuated with more vegenance than that urban legend that your mother in law can’t stop forwarding to you even though you’ve sent her to snopes half a dozen times or more in the past month.
A MYTH.
The good news is that there are TONS of ways that daddy can bond with the baby, and in fact he can even potentially nurture an even better bond with the baby than the breastfeeding mom has. How? By jumping to be the parent. By jumping to be the one that soothes, that changes the diapers, that gives the bath, that greets baby’s middle-of-the-night wakings with “Let me see if she’ll fall back to sleep if I rock her before I wake up mom for a feeding.” By dancing with baby, by singing to baby, by baby wearing, by being eager to learn about baby’s stages of development and by reading about the different games you can play with a newborn. Learn to read your baby’s cues to see when she’s overtired, when he needs a diaper change. Learn how to burp him to relieve that painful gas bubble. Learn to do baby massage, to bicycle his legs to get that lower-gas out. Peekaboo, park playtime. A walk around the block to point out the new flowers, the different types of cars, the bushes, the shapes in the clouds.
If you’re a dad that doesn’t feel that you’re bonding with baby.. Ask yourself what you’re not doing. Ask yourself what you can do more of. The answer is never “bottles” or “formula”. It’s never asking your wife to pump milk.
Build your bond. Take resposnsibility for your bond. Look for the ways in which you can bond. And your baby will soon recognize your efforts and fall madly in love with you even if you don’t have the magic breast.
Formula and bottles? They’re never the answer for the question of bonding. You don’t have to take away the single thing that only mom can do in order to form a bond. There are so many things that are equal opportunity bonding experiences. Enjoy them. They form relationships between father and child that last long after your child has weaned.
Amen.
Thank you.
My husband did display alot of interest in feeding our baby but also understood the importance of breastfeeding.
Yes, he will give her a bottle of expressed milk once and a while but he soon discovered he could bond with our baby in other ways that was better than sticking a bottle in her mouth.
In fact, he found babywearing to be more of a bonding experience than bottle feeding.
I think some may use the excuse of lack of bonding due to breastfeeding to explain their detachment, at least in the beginning to their child. I know that sounds awful but in my own experience, I saw my husband loving our baby but not quite sure what to do with her at such a young age.
Newborns must be handled delicately and that can be a little difficult or stressing for men. My FIL was and still is petrified. As they grow and become more aware and less ‘doughy’, men discover their own sense of bonding.
Now that our daughter can sit up and respond to my husband, I find they are closer than before and the bond they share is wonderful to watch.
I strongly urge anyone feeling a little out of sync with their baby should step back, turn everything off, grab your baby, your sling/carrier and your diaper bag and just go out for a walk. Don’t do errands. Just walk and describe everything to your baby, even if he/she is sleeping. Just focus on your baby and you.
Amen and hallelujah! I love that you mentioned wearing the baby as a means of bonding for dads. My husband LOVED wearing our son and would often put him in the sling and go for a walk around the block to put him to sleep so I didn’t always have to nurse him down.
Also, pumping so someone else can feed a baby a bottle can quickly lead to plugged ducts and a lowered milk supply. You are essentially skipping a feeding every time you do this. I tried it a few times and it was always a disaster.
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful post!
We did use bottles because I’m a WOHM and my husband is a SAHD, but bottles on their own are not a way to bond and there are so many other things a dad can do.
My husband would have been screwed (if feeding baby was his interest). My first had NO interest in bottles. What so ever. None. There were a couple of times that I had to leave my son with a sitter and ended up rushing home to feed him because he just would NOT take a bottle.
I totally agree with this! My husband jumped in right from the get go and was with our daughter those hours I was recovering from my cesarean. He was the one who changed her diapers the first day or two of her life. He would sit on the exercise ball with her and bounce to help her sleep. He took her to the park for the first time before she was even three months old and spent TONS of time with her her whole first year. She was definitely a daddy’s girl and that was even with me breastfeeding. The two of us may have spent the day cuddling and nursing but when Daddy came home, they hung out and watched Korean TV on the computer (don’t ask). Breastfeeding did NOT take away from their bonding AT ALL. If anything, the breastfeeding made sure I kept bonding with her myself! He was definitely better at giving her attention than I was.
another great post! my fiance, unfortunately, felt like he couldn’t bond with our daughter in the beginning. he tried to say it was because i was breastfeeding and she was constantly attached to me, that he couldn’t bond with her. i felt he was saying this because he was afraid, and didn’t know what to do with such a little baby (he later on admitted those were the reasons). when kyrie was about 2-3 months, we started taking her in the shower with us. her dad loved it because she would smile for and respond to him. I think sometimes dads just need a gentle push (and some direction) to start becoming closer with their little ones.
I can’t say how much I agree with you, and how much I’ve tried to explain this to people on so many different forums. My husband and son share a wonderful bond, and have done since the early days. My son did have the occasional bottle of expressed breast milk (but never any formula), but that was for times when I wanted a break or my husband wanted to go out with him when he would be due a feed. I don’t think those bottles in any way helped them to develop their bond. Rather it was that my husband was totally involved in every other aspect of my son’s care right from the start. He gave him most of his baths, did just as many nappy changes as me, sat up in the middle of the night rocking him when he had wind, carried him around in the sling when he didn’t want to lie down, and much much more.
My husband totally agrees that breast is best, and that that is just about the only thing he can’t do for my son.
I’m very late to this thread, and new to the blog, but came over from a comment at equallysharedparenting.com and wanted to add my 2 cents.
You’ve made a lovely list of things that dads, or in my case, non-gestational moms (my wife gave birth to and nursed our now 2 1/2 y.o. daughter, I am now pregnant with our second child) can do to bond. Babywearing was my favorite way to bond with our daughter.
But one thing that I think can be hard for new dads, or any new non-nursing parent when a nursing parent present, is that it can be difficult to get a meaningful quantity of time alone with your child when he/she is so dependent on the breast early on. And if you don’t have time, it can be hard to feel truly competent at so many of the things you mention (diapering, bathing, etc.), particularly if mom is home during the day for those first few months while you are working outside the home, and thus she is developing parental competence more quickly. This is a dynamic that can make even the most gung-ho non-nursing parent feel “supervised.” I was pretty much as enthusiastic a parent as you can get, was able to take two full months leave just after the birth, and my wife was extremely sensitive to and supportive of my relationship with our daughter. Even so, I still remember feeling relieved when I was able to feed some bottles of pumped milk and thus have multiple hour stretches alone with our daughter to find my own footing as a parent, and my wife certainly enjoyed the breathing room. So, is a bottle essential for dad bonding? Absolutely not. But time and space are, and I do believe a bottle here and there can help facilitate both.
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bull. this post is just a mother making excuses for an exclusive relationship she knows she can have with her baby that no one else without breasts that feed can. Eating with holding is two human needs given at the same time that only a dad who bottle-feeds can equal. you want to compare to some dumb study with monkeys that was obviously made only to prove a point of which you already have your mind made up about. if i made any other comparison to animals that contradicted this you would respond by saying your baby is not a monkey.
Boobie Dad,
Honestly, as someone who was EXTREMELY burned out, touched out, and exhausted during my son’s first year of life, I didn’t care much about exclusive anything. When my mom came to visit and was able to watch my son and get him to sleep without me and without the need to nurse to sleep, I was THRILLED.
Having been through that with my first husband and first child, and experiencing the way my boyfriend parents vs. how my husband parented, I am MUCH more confident in saying that anyone who says that their inability to feed the baby interferes with their ability to bond with baby is suffering from some illusion that comfort and bonding come easily at the breast.
Yes, feeding baby can enhance bonding, but it’s not the maker or the breaker, and the possible problems introduced by a bottle far outweigh the benefits.
Anyone who needs to feed a baby in order to feel bonded with the baby is copping out. It’s one on a LONG LIST of ways to bond with baby. If dad doesn’t feel bonded with baby or is unable to soothe baby without use of food.. There’s something else going on.
I was THRILLED to share parenting tasks. I just wasn’t going to risk/sacrifice my son ‘s nutrition in order to do so, and honestly the work involved in pumping was burning me out faster since my husband at the time had very little interest in helping with other tasks such as soothing, changing an equal or greater number of diapers, rocking, etc. Pumping on top of EVERYTHING ELSE I had to do would have completely destroyed me.
I’d also like to say that a slightly better bond for baby does not mitigate the risks of formula and of bottle feeding, nor does it excuse the risks for mom.
Dads were able to bond with their offspring before a rubber nipple was invented.
If dad can’t bond with baby because he’s not feeding baby, dad is making excuses. And bad ones.
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Boobie dad
Honestly, I think many dads who say that they must feed their child to bond are using it as an excuse. Either they are nervous about interacting with baby (which can be easily resolved with some help) or they are just plain lazy. Let’s face it, bottlefeeding a baby is easier then changing a diaper, bathing baby, finding new ways to play with baby. To bottle feed you just have to hold baby in arms and insert nipple in mouth. It is sad to think that a father would choose to sacrifice a breastfeeding relationship because they’re not willing to interact in other ways. Moms who breastfeed understand that they are providing the absolute best nutrition there is. It can be extremely difficult to start with and many moms experience alot of hardship throughout but they do it because it is the right thing to do. Bonding is part of the package, not the main reason. And why not allow a women to have an exclusive breastfeeding relationship? Women are designed to be the nurturing parental figure. Aside from the boobs, women are emotional, compassionate creatures who from the beginning of human life have played that role. Bottles were not invented to “level the playing field” for dads. Many good fathers understand this and have successfully bonded with baby in the ways described in the article (which was very well written).
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No-one has mentioned the fact that a dad can have a lovely time bonding with bub and being close to mum by having a cuddle whilst feeding. We spent many a happy time snuggled up on the couch, baby at my breast and gazing upwards to two loving faces. Now that she is older she loves nothing more than to lie in bed between us feeding, reaching back and stroking/playing with her dad’s hair/face/t-shirt with her free hand. He is very much a part of the bonding whilst feeding, without a bottle in sight.
It wasn’t/isn’t every time but often enough for dad and bub, dad never feels left out and can join in with the feeding any time he likes.
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I have one of those husbands that will do anything not to spend time with the baby. If you ask him he’ll deny it but it so evident. He only takes the baby if he is asked too and instead of enjoying the moment he asks me to take the baby so he can smoke, run errand, work extra, etc…In a way I’m enjoying the single momhood because I love spending time with my kiddo but I’m worried about their relationship and how it will affect my daughter in the long run. I already feel like she doesn’t like to be with him because he always complains about taking care of her. He did say he would go to counseling with me because we are no longer connecting so I feel like maybe there is a small chance things will improve. But if they don’t? What should I do? This isn’t fair to my daughter or me and I don’t want to live the rest of my life wondering when he’ll decide to become a father or even a husband. I don’t even entertain having another child with him at this point because what’s the point….any advice anyone?