Dad's Clever Trick for "Breastfeeding" His Daughter

 

Returning to work after having a baby is often a challenging time for mothers, and that transition can be even more difficult when the mom is breastfeeding. As if finding a place to pump in the workplace and transporting bags of breastmilk home isn’t hard enough, sometimes a baby refuses to take a bottle and only wants the breast — which can be frustrating not just for the mother, but for the father as well. Moms need a break now and then, and dads (contrary to all the negative stereotypes out there) want to be involved in the feeding process.
Luckily, a creative father from Florida just might have found the most ingenious solution of all baby-only-wants-mama’s-breast challenge.
When Chris Allen’s fiancé returned to work, the new father knew he needed to step up to the plate and take over feeding duties for their daughter Destiny, who had been
exclusively breastfed until that point. But Allen did more than just step up to the plate; he hit it out of the park — and his creative solution is taking the Internet by storm. Recognizing that babies crave the suckling part of nursing as much as they crave the milk itself, Allen cut a small hole in his shirt, pushed the nipple of the bottle through that hole and – voila! – he was able to provide his daughter the next best thing to a mother’s breast.
One afternoon while Allen’s fiancé was at work, he filmed a selfie video of the process, saying, “I guess it’s like breastfeeding, right? Gotta love it.” Shortly after, he shared the video with the Facebook page Breastfeeding Mama Talk, and the rest is Internet history. The video has since been viewed more than 5 million times. And he’s right — you definitely “gotta love it.”
Any time a parent shows this amount of dedication to their child — not to mention the creativity and ingenuity that this dad showed — you can’t do anything but stand up and applaud. Unfortunately, there are naysayers to any positive story, and this one is no exception. While most commenters are showering this dad with praise, the negative comments just go to show how far we still have to go as a society to normalize and support breastfeeding. With any luck, this video will bring us one step closer.