And a man who can't disinfect and clean bottles is going to hate it when he finds out about diapers :)
Where in my post did I say men can't do this? I just said it is many times more inconvenient for a man to do this, than for a woman to breast feed. Inconvenience experienced over time is another way of saying stress.
Honestly, I'm going to bow out of the conversation now. I realize that my wife and I make several choices to maximize our convenience that would seem odd to other couples. My basic idea is to just go with the way natural selection made your bodies act and don't add pressure to do anything different. It's much much much easier that way.
You still need to wake up to pump, and whether pumping or breastfeeding it does not change how many times you (the baby) wake up at night in general.
I know several men who have taken parental leave to be the primary caregiver for their >newborn but <1 year olds, while their wives return to work. It was cruel for neither the father, mother, nor child.
Your argument, I believe, is that if the mother dies in childbirth, then it is cruel for the father to take care of the child. In that case, what do we do? Or does that follow under the "necessary" exception which allows cruelty?
It might just be that it isn't actually cruel.
> I know several men who have taken parental leave to be the primary caregiver for their >newborn but <1 year olds, while their wives return to work. It was cruel for neither the father, mother, nor child.
I hate the term 'primary caregiver'. Mom and Dad are primary caregiver, independent of whether they are working, staying at home, etc.
> Your argument, I believe, is that if the mother dies in childbirth, then it is cruel for the father to take care of the child. In that case, what do we do? Or does that follow under the "necessary" exception which allows cruelty?
Well no. This is a strawman. Above, in my previous comment, I said it is cruel to mom, dad, and child. I even mentioned the inconvenience of mom pumping milk. If mom is dead, then this arrangement cannot be cruel to her, and she cannot be inconvenienced by pumping milk. A straightforward and benevolent reading of my comment would have you believe that it does not apply to cases in which mom has died.
This is a rare enough occurrence that policies that seek to work well with the norm can't really be criticized for not addressing it.
> It might just be that it isn't actually cruel.
Or it might be that we as a society are used to being cruel to both women and children.
Is this cruel? Not "is it inconvenient", but is it - your term - "cruel"?
(I double-checked, and "primary caregiver" is the correct term for that situation. It is not exclusionary as both parents may be primary caregivers at the same time. Also, the primary caregiver may be another relative or friend, and not always the mother or father.)
Also, what does "cruel" mean to you? Babies aren't acculturated, so societal expectations don't really apply to judging the responses of a 4 month old. Do you mean they cry more? Do they have lower levels of oxycotin? Or how else do you figure out that a society has been making a mistake in how it deals with babies?
Breast milk is not a fixed product. Rather, the suckling action as well as pathogens present in the baby cause it to change its composition. It contains antibodies for the baby if the child is sick, and its fat/sugar ratios change depending on the age of the baby (via suckling). Pumping removes this feedback loop from the mother. There is little research here, but preliminary research (https://psmag.com/economics/unseen-consequences-pumping-brea...) demonstrates several negative effects of pumping. Pumping often produces too much foremilk (high in sugar), rather than hind milk (high in fat), because pumping doesn't work in the way baby's mouths do.
As for comfort. I think most babies are comforted by feeding. However, with formula, you have to be careful not to overfeed. You can't really overfeed with breastfeeding. The maximal amount of calories the child can get is whatever amount his mother is eating, so if mom is eating the right amount, the baby will get it.
It is cruel to mother, father, and child to force a father to take care of a newborn or < 1 yr old without the mother. The newborn is used to the mother's body. A newborn gets stressed being away from its mother and source of food, even when with the dad. Breastfeeding from the breast is not just a source of nutrition but also a source of comfort for the baby, and healthy for the mom (both physically and mentally). Men do not have this need or ability.
Putting a man at home with his newborn, without the mother, is a recipe for disaster. Not because a man cannot do the actions required to take care of a baby in this circumstance, but because, if the woman wants to do the recommended thing for her child (breastfeed him or her), then she would have to pump (which is a lot of work) and store her milk (a lot of work). Oh also, she'd have to do this at work, which again makes her unequal to her male colleagues. The man would have to disinfect and clean bottles, and be unable to soothe a child if he runs out of milk (unless he has formula on hand). The child doesn't get the human touch of breastfeeding.
So to recap... the mother loses because, despite going to work for the sake of 'equality', she's stuck every few hours pumping milk, losing work time her male colleagues can use to further their career. The baby loses because it doesn't get the psychological security of suckling at the breast. The father loses because he is simply less able to calm the baby down and feed it than the mother.
By all means, help men to stay home with their older children. This is great, but a father with a newborn is simply a bad idea, IMO. Formula is possible, but from a public health perspective, it should be discouraged unless necessary.
I will never understand why people make parenting harder on themselves. Newborns are hard enough, but the human body has an easy way to fix it. Whenever my daughter is fussy, she goes straight back to her mom for comfort nursing, and then when she's done, she's back to me for fun times. This is easier for everyone involved, and fosters a positive father-child relationship.
Both my wife and brother-in-law were breastfed whenever they were fussy, and it always calmed them down, according to MIL and FIL. Not being breastfed myself, I didn't believe it at first. But sure enough, with my daughter, literally all problems can be solved by suckling for a minute at her mother's breast. Why make this harder on ourselves? By the time she's back with me, she's happy, laughing, and ready for tickles and fun, and mom can get a well-deserved break.