“If I could, I would.”

A dad’s role in breastfeeding a child can be crucial.

Nursing mothers need support and help, especially if there are other children besides the newborn.

Research into the father’s place in a nursing family is relatively new. However, studies are showing that a dad’s positive attitude and helping hands can encourage both the mother’s experience and how long she nurses the baby overall.

Photographer Hector Cruz noticed that his wife was struggling with nursing their new child. He felt helpless and wished so badly that he could just nurse the baby for her. And Project Breastfeeding was born.

Cruz realized quickly when he stepped into help that breastfeeding is a team effort—so he founded Project Breastfeeding, who’s mission is to “destigmatize public breastfeeding, educate men and empower women.”

He also put his photography skills to great use by campaigning with images of men holding their infants in traditional breastfeeding postures.

Go here for more inspiring images, and watch this video for more information on both the project and how you can get involved.

Photos: Courtesy of Project Breastfeeding, visit on Facebook.

The post Dads Breastfeeding? How These Images Hope to Change Families. {Video} first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

I’ve been a bit of a grump lately.

I’m sure it’s partly hormonal (I’m pregnant after all), but it’s also the reality that my life with this second impending birth isn’t the same as it was with my first.

Which is great. I wouldn’t change anything about my life—anything—and I sincerely mean that, but romance and love as a parent is notoriously different than it is for childless couples.

Like many women, I miss the touch of my husband whenever I want it, not whenever it’s possible.

I miss those early mornings when we stayed in bed until noon—and then ate and climbed back in.

Yet I really do love being a mother.

Sure, sometimes I wish that I had more time by myself, but I always did (I’ve always needed a large space of alone time within the structure of my days, for as social as I am).

And then I heard this song.

It’s one of my favorites, and it describes perfectly how love can be so easily affected by work, by outsiders, by life. 

It inspired me to create this list of love songs, not just for my husband, but for anyone who finds themselves arguing with the one they love when all they want to do is kiss passionately; for the lovers who disagree about money; for long-term relationships who know that their love really can and will go the distance, but who still get frustrated with circumstance.

Here goes.

So, baby, I love you—and don’t forget it. (Even when I’m a pregnant grump.)

Photo credits: Author’s own; fruity monkey/Flickr.

The post A Love Playlist for the Father of my Child. {Videos} first appeared on Jennifer S. White.