by Chris Bodenner
A final angle on the baby formula debate:
Two friends of mine, a gay couple, adopted a kid the day he was born. Their healthy little boy never had a drop of breast milk. While I understand it's better to drink breast milk for 12+ months, their active and strong kid does not look like he missed much. However, when my wife and I came over to meet him, just a few days old, he looked at her breasts with envy. He didn't understand much, but he knew that boobs were where it's at. He apparently had the same reaction to all women early on.
Breastfeeding is something I cannot do (being a guy), but both my daughters tried to feed off me in the early stages. The first tried a nipple, and gave me the dirtiest look – as if she wanted to say, "You son of a bitch, what use are you?" Baby #2 tried, but only gave me a look of disappointment.
Along those lines, another reader offers a novel suggestion:
I'm an old gay guy – no kids, no experience with babies or wives. It has been interesting and educational to hear moms talk about the pros and cons of breastfeeding their infants. I was particularly surprised by the "latching" process, where the baby learns to correctly grasp the mother's nipple to enable proper feeding. Many women described this as painful, sore, and even bloody. I think we may have an answer to the age old question of why men have nipples! Maybe the dads should to the initial training of the infant, suffer the sore and bloody nipples, and when the infant is trained – hand it over the the fresh and adoring mom! Well, I suspect no two sets of nipples are the same from the baby's perspective, but it might be worth a try.
The Dish 