Plenty of ways to connect besides feeding

Dear Mr. Dad: My wife is breastfeeding our new baby, and when I look at them, they’re so connected and I feel completely useless. I try to do other stuff like baths and diaper changing, but feeding seems so much more important. One of my projects was to set up the nursery. I got the crib and changing table all set up, and my wife told me we needed crib bumpers so the baby wouldn’t bang her head on the slats of the crib. A friend told me that crib bumpers are a bad idea. So I’ve got two questions: What can I do to feel less useless when my wife is breastfeeding? And should I get bumpers for the baby’s crib?

A. Let’s start with the second one. For readers who don’t already know, crib bumpers are soft pads that run along the inside of the crib and are designed to do exactly what your wife says: keep the baby from running into the slats or bars and getting hurt. Bumpers sound like a great idea, and millions of people – including me – have used them for decades. But new research shows that bumpers could actually be more dangerous than the injuries they’re trying to protect against.

In one study, 27 babies died (over 20 years) from factors directly attributable to bumpers: suffocation (babies may run into the bumpers with their face and not be able to move away), entrapment (getting caught between the bumper and the mattress), or strangulation (some bumpers are tied on with strings, which can get wrapped around the baby’s neck). The American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends against using bumpers of any kind, even the mesh “breathable” ones, which eliminate the suffocation risk but could still create entrapment or strangulation hazards. So, yes, while crib bumpers might keep some babies from getting minor bumps and bruises, they can also be deadly. If your wife already bought bumpers, I’d return them. Why take the chance?

Now on to breastfeeding. There’s no question that you’re at a bit of a disadvantage. Most people would say that feeding is the most important thing you can do for a baby. But there’s a big difference between “most important” and “only.” Unfortunately, that’s a distinction many people don’t make.

“When it comes to meeting the needs of an infant, for some parents the whole focus is on breastfeeding,” says Francine de Montigny, a professor of nursing at the Universite du Quebec. And the dads, no matter how involved they are, often feel that “their babies had this one crucially important need that they were unable to meet.”

Interestingly, de Montigny found that fathers whose babies were being fed formula – meaning that they could feed them just as much as the mothers could – were actually less involved than dads of breastfed babies. The men with breastfed infants were doing many of the things you’re doing – “holding and comforting their babies, giving baths and baby massages,” she says, “while the involvement of the fathers of bottle-fed children tended to be more centered around giving the baby a bottle.”

So rather than focus on the one thing you can’t do, pay more attention to what you’re already doing. In addition to the baths and massages, think of all the skin-to-skin contact you’re making, all the diapers you’re changing, the stories you’re reading, the playing you’re doing, the bedtime routines you’ve created, the walks you’re taking, and all the times your baby has blissfully fallen asleep on your chest. Sounds pretty involved to me. Your baby is lucky to have you.