Tag Archives: breastfeeding

How Dads Can Play an Important Role in Breastfeeding and a Giveaway

06/15/2014 R.C. Liley 9 Comments

Happy Father’s Day to all of you awesome dads out there! These two girls make me a happy father/husband every day!

Yep, I’m one proud and lucky guy, and I’m elated to be celebrating this day for the first time! Avery also turns 7 months old today; she’s past the half year mark!

I finally get to find out what my wife has been keeping me from in our front room for the past month. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you soon.

Besides having two beautiful girls in my life, I’m proud of the fact that Going Mom chooses to only breastfeed Avery and will never consider formula. I understand some situations where it’s not possible, but just giving up isn’t a good reason or fair to babies.

No doubt, breastfeeding, from what I’ve seen and heard, is no walk in the park and has many hurdles to get past, but it’s not impossible. Going Mom is one of many mothers who deal with the #boobissues on a daily basis, and I do my best to support her however I can.

In honor of Father’s Day, Medela shared with me that they have collaborated with Kuroji Patrick, one of Medela’s 2013 Breastfeeding Hall of Excellence inductees, to create a list of tips for dads to get and stay involved with the breastfeeding journey.

We take pride in raising our daughter with the best nutrition from Mother Nature, and I hope this list will held dads support their partners and be an advocate for breastfeeding.

Daddies and Breastfeeding: Ways to Stay Involved

Before the Baby Comes

Be supportive of your partner’s decision to breastfeed by understanding the benefits of breastmilk.

Help your partner find information on what breastpump your insurance will cover. The Affordable Care Act requires insurance companies to provide equipment and support with no co-pay, but the actual pump provided will vary from company to company.

Join your partner in preparing for the experience of breastfeeding by taking a course that will provide you both with the information you’ll need to know.

Seek out other fathers who have supported their partners while Breastfeeding to gain real world advice.

At the Hospital

At the hospital, be an advocate for your partner. Make sure the staff knows that she wants to breastfeed and that formula should not be given to the baby without consent.

Find the lactation consultant if mom is struggling. Many hospitals have one on staff, and early intervention and support from a professional is crucial, particularly for first-time moms.

Ask the hospital staff about local breastfeeding support groups for after your family goes home. Peer encouragement is helpful, and it’s an excuse for mom and baby to get out of the house.

At Home

In addition to making sure your partner has what she needs while she heals from childbirth, you can help the breastfeeding transition to home by making sure she is comfortable while nursing—by bringing her pillows, foot rest, water, etc.
It doesn’t sound glamorous, but diaper changes are a great way for you to get involved in baby care. In addition to giving your partner a break, it’s a chance for you and your baby to start practicing conversation skills by making eye contact, cooing noises and engaging your baby with changing facial expressions.
If your partner starts pumping, you’ll have a chance to bond with your baby over a bottle and give your partner a break. You can further help your partner by washing and sterilizing pump parts and bottles.
Be your partner’s biggest cheerleader. Breastfeeding can be frustrating and difficult in the beginning, but you can provide moral support by acknowledging the difficulty of nursing and offering to find a professional to help, such as lactation consultant (which should be covered by your insurance). And remind your partner of why she wanted to breastfeed in the first place!

I have been utilizing tips like these since Avery’s birth and know I have a stronger bond with my daughter and wife as a result. The benefits of breastfeeding are powerful and I’d hope any parent would want only the best for their children.

Medela’s online education course, Breastfeeding University, costs a reasonable $25 and offers you priceless information, but they have agreed to allow me to offer 3 readers free access codes to the course! This would be perfect for the expecting couple to complete together or any couple looking to add to their breastfeeding knowledge database.

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment below telling me about your experience or plans with breastfeeding. I will randomly select 3 commenters to receive access codes to use to take the course for free. Contest ends next Friday, June 20th.

This giveaway has ended, but don’t worry, I’ll have plenty of other opportunities to win great prizes in the future!

Thanks to everyone who read and commented on this post, it’s something I am deeply passionate about. The three winners are Maggie, Ashley, and Stacy. Congrats and I have sent an e-mail for your code!

Hope everyone has a great day! Treat the dad in your life extra nice today! 🙂

Disclosure: I was not compensated in any way for this post and all views are strictly my own.

Parenting

Is Caffeine in Breast Milk Bad?

06/11/2014 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

It’s a question any coffee/tea loving nursing mother has probably asked, and for good reason; no one wants to hurt their baby because of what they consumed. Same goes for fathers for the same reason.

I never finished detailing my birthday weekend from yesterday’s post as I only covered Saturday, the day before my actual birthday. As I mentioned then, we stopped at the restaurant Brewed after the 5k race for coffee and brunch. I didn’t eat, but enjoyed their locally roasted coffee with many, many refills.

Going Mom also partook in the coffee consumption, and rightfully so, she was up early and boldly drove us around some of the “unpleasant” areas of Forth Worth to get us to the race. Kelley has only had one full cup of coffee a handful of times since having Avery, but that day, she had 4 cups. Yep, and we don’t add cream, sugar, and all of that crap, so the cups were purely coffee.

Avery had been up for a long time with minimal napage (it’s a word), and we fully expected to have her hit the crib hard and sleep through the night. WRONG! Kelley nursed her to sleep after bath time as usual, but just a few hours later Avery was wide awake crying.

We knew something was wrong when the crying didn’t subside after 5 minutes like usually would happen at this time. Kelley marched back in the nursery, loaded with fresh breast milk, and proceeded to calm and nurse Avery back to sleep. An hour later, she was back asleep in her crib, and we tried to go back to sleep as well.

Silly parents, Avery didn’t feel like sleeping that long; she was sitting up crying maybe an hour and a half later. Kelley did her thing once more, and finally made it back to bed again only to have Avery again! My poor, tired wife didn’t want me to have to go in there for my birthday, but I insisted on giving it a shot.

Keyword, “shot”, because I did nothing to help! She wouldn’t take a bottle and all she did was make it very awkward to hold her. At one point, she let out a blood curdling cry which had Kelley in the nursery faster than you can say “crazy baby”. At this point, this sun was rising and we decided to give up and stay awake.

I asked her if she wanted coffee and then we both laughed. We actually have a non-caffeine herbal coffee alternative that I make her, so I prepared a cup for both of us as we sat on the back porch with our ~~spawn from hell~~ sweet baby.

That’s Avery’s head and you can see my legs in the background. As long as she was being held, Avery was happy, and it was actually a pleasant way to start my 30th.

After sitting outside for a while, we went back inside where Kelley had my gifts sitting out on the island. Sneaking lady, that wife of mine!

Schneider Weisse Aventinus is my favorite beer, and I got three; one for each decade. I’m not a big drinker, and usually keep it to one glass on most days (unless I’m at a brewery!), but I expect high quality from my beverages and Aventinus is just that!

Kelley made the card herself as she knows I think buying cards is unnecessary most of the time and handmade is more thoughtful. She did a lot better than my handmade cards to her and I loved it! Inside the card I found this…

A Microbrew Beer of the Month Club for US Beers! Most of you probably think I’m lying, but I promise, I don’t drink a lot, just want good beer when I do. I’ll be getting 12 beers from different US microbreweries for the next four months to enjoy. Perfect timing since Avery is showing signs of teething!

With 12 beers each month, I bet we’ll have a nice stash by the end since we haven’t finished the 6 pack I bought over a month ago. I expect to share these with Kelley so we can enjoy together, because drinking alone is just sad.

The brown bag had fresh cremini and portobello mushrooms; one of my favorites! I could eat a huge bowl of mushrooms (the non-trippy kind) and go back for seconds; yum! For my 28th b-day, my co-workers knew how I avoid sugary, processed food, and that I love mushrooms, so they even gave me a Portobello mushroom cake!

They didn’t have the right candles, so a “0” had to do, and I loved it.

I’ve been enjoying several birthday mushrooms on top of my salad every night since and am glad Kelley bought them for me. Thanks, Kelley….and Avery too!

Despite our earlier than expected start to the day, we ended up have a great time together and even brought Avery for another trip to the pool. Thankfully, the caffeine must’ve finally wore off as she slept a little better that night. I need to extend my b-day weekend stories to another post as it’s late and my bed is beckoning.

Oh yeah, to answer the question; a little caffeine shouldn’t be of concern and is generally safe to have while breastfeeding. From what I read, only around 1 percent actually ends up in breast milk, and up to 300mg/day should be okay. Of course, everyone is different, so drink at your own risk!

Do or did you drink coffee or another caffeine source while breastfeeding?

Fathers, same question but for your wife/girlfriend/partner.

Have you ever had a non-traditional cake?

Life, Parenting

Breast Milk with a Fever and Playtime with Avery

04/30/2014 R.C. Liley 6 Comments

Yep, today I’m a stay-at-home dad and husband. Well, technically I’m always those things, but work with me here.

Poor Going Mom, she came home on Monday and seemed fine, but she was suddenly overwhelmed with body aches and a fever. She had just changed and started a workout when her body just didn’t feel up to par.

Kelley had quickly turned so weak it took all she had just to stand, and I wanted to help however possible, but there’s not much I can do for fevers. Of course, I still bugged her and asked if there was anything I could do about 10 times.

With Kelley so weak, I figured I’d need to be the one waking up to feed Avery as her beckoning wails of hunger rang through monitor, but Kelley was still adamant on breastfeeding. And rightly so; breastfeeding when you are sick is actually one of the best things you can do for your baby!

Actually, not breastfeeding while ill increases your baby’s chance of getting sick! I found this excerpt from Kellymom.com and recommend reading the full post here.

The best thing you can do for your baby when you’re sick is to continue to breastfeed. When you have a contagious illness such as a cold, flu, or other mild virus, your baby was exposed to the illness before you even knew you were sick. Your milk will not transmit your illness to baby, but it does have antibodies in it that are specific to your illness (plus anything else you or baby have been exposed to) – they’ll help prevent baby from getting sick, or if he does get sick, he’ll probably not be as sick as you.

And that’s what we did, only I brought Avery to Kelley in our room instead of her going to the nursery like usual. I’m already so grateful that Going Mom is willing to continue strictly breastfeeding Avery since it is the best thing for a baby and obviously free, but to continue when so ill is outstanding!

I just want to say way to go to my dear wife and all other women who are able and willing to breast feed; it’s the best nutrition you can give.

We will be starting to give Avery food in a few weeks since she’ll be 6 months, and then I’ll puree the food with breast milk to ensure good nutrition. Fun times ahead there! I hope she likes pureed Brussels sprouts with breast milk!

On Tuesday morning, Kelley started feeling nauseous so I gave her a Zevia Ginger Ale which helped settle her stomach.

With the intention of working even though she was sick, Kelley needed her laptop. I planned on making a trip to the store anyway, so, with Avery along for the ride, we made a little pit stop at her work and we were on the way to the store.

Back home, Going Mom fed Avery and put her down for a nap while I unloaded groceries and went to the garage for a workout. Afterward, I was starving so I made something for myself and Kelley as a late lunch. Not long after, Avery decided to wake up, so she hung out with me in the kitchen.

Together, Avery and I did what all babies dream of; put together sandwiches for mom! Yep, I make several at a time so I always have one ready for my hardworking wife!

Hmm, so it takes eight slices of bread for one sandwich? I'd rather have boob... — Hmm, so it takes eight slices of bread for one sandwich? I’d rather have boob…

Meanwhile, my sick wife diligently worked on the couch in the living room. Or at least tried since I kept talking and Avery kept blowing raspberries which doesn’t make for the best work environment.

She probably didn’t appreciate that I had the TV on either. Sorry, Kelley. To give her some peace, I took Avery for a long walk in the Ergobaby Ventus while she finished work for the day.

After a rather windy, but otherwise nice weather walk, we returned home to see how Going Mom was doing. Surprisingly, her fever had gone down and no more body aches, but she did have a bad headache. Boo headaches, yay reduced fever!

With her slightly improved condition and work done for the day, we took advantage of our happy daughter and enjoyed playtime together.

She’s been getting more interested in her colored rings and we’ve been working on her sitting up without help. You can see me in the background helping to hold her a little. I tried letting her sit up unassisted, but that only resulted in this..

Oops.

No worries though, playtime was still a go!

How long does that “put anything I can in my mouth” phase last? Or maybe I don’t want to know.

What I do know, is that we’re finding out Avery is a very ticklish baby. Her upper thigh is the most sensitive if the squeeze both sides, it’s my weak spot too, and when I “attack” her legs and stomach.

Poor girl, she’s probably wondering when the annoying “mom and dad tickle everything” phase will end. Well, Avery, I’m here to say it will never end! Even after you’re grown and out of our house, we’ll still tickle attack you like the baby you currently are. Sorry, it’s just love!

Although Going Mom had to get sick, it ended up being a good day just spending time together and playing with our constantly growing baby. We know she’ll be sitting up on her own soon and face planting will be a thing of the past.

If you’re a mom, have you ever had to breastfeed while sick? Dads, same question but for your significant other.

Any thoughts on the importance of breastfeeding over any other kind of feeding? Please share.