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Originally Posted by pumpkinhead  Both of my kids very eagerly latched onto dh's nose as newborns. Unintentionally. Kieran tried to when he found his nipple in bed. He was unhappy with the hair.
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Dd also loved dh's nose as a newborn. He put up with it so long as it wasn't too painful.
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Originally Posted by Tendaironi It makes no sense that there would be mammary glands in a male if they were not some sort of back up plan that Designer intended. I tried to convince my husband of this and he wasn't interested. However, ds tried to latch on a couple times when he was tired at 5 months.
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I also feel that male lactation is a neat sort of backup system. Ideally, if I died and left a newborn or infant, it would mean so much to me if my dh could carry on with that aspect of nurturing the baby, even in a small way (comfort suckling, whatever). My dh is also not hairy around the nipples . . . less hair than many female breasts I've seen. However, primarily due to social constraints, he wouldn't do it. So what we've talked about is trying to find a good source of donor milk if something were to happen to me and I left behind a newborn or infant.
I don't think men should (or will) try to "take over" breastfeeding from women or take the primary place as the breastfeeding parent. I just don't see that as even remotely likely because (1) they can't make enough milk to fully nourish the infant; and (2) social stigma is, and will continue to be, too strong to make that a realistic possibility.
I see nothing wrong with a man out of desperation offering his screaming newborn his own nipple when mama isn't around (and I doubt it would work if mama *was* around). But I also may have skewed perceptions, because my dh is a SAHD and I have no problems with him, a man, being the primary caregiver for our children, even though we have switched typical gender roles.
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