New dad crowdsources opinions after admitting to dry nursing his baby

A new dad has turned to the Internet for advice after revealing he dry nurses his baby daughter by offering his nipples to suckle when his wife isn’t around.

Taking to Reddit, the dad explained he’d tried the unconventional method to soothe his child after struggling to get her to settle during the night.

“Sometimes when my baby is crying in the night and it’s my turn to quiet and soothe her, in desperation I’ll try to get her to suckle at my nipples,” he wrote on the thread.

“Usually she doesn’t want them (too hairy?), but sometimes she latches on, and I find myself experiencing a confusing mixture of joy at the connection between father and daughter, and horror at what I’ve become,” he continued.

The new dad went on to gauge whether he was alone in trying out the unusual soothing method, as well as making it clear he wasn’t attempting to actually breastfeed his baby as “that’s just too weird.”

And many users took the opportunity to reassure the dad he wasn’t doing anything wrong.

“I don’t think it’s very common, but really, whatever works, right? If it soothes her and you don’t mind, I’m not going to judge,” one user wrote.

READ MORE: What is mastitis?

Although the dad was worried his attempts to settle his daughter might be considered strange, others did use the comments to share examples of them trying similar things.

“My husband was curious about it and let our 2-week-old latch onto his nipple, and immediately yelped in pain hahaha. I don’t think its that weird, kind of cute!” one mum commented.

“My SO has tried to do this but I just yell at him and tell him not to. I just think it’s weird to do since the baby isn’t getting milk from the father… Plus hairy nipples can’t be fun to suck on,” another wrote.

Other users suggested trying to settle a baby by putting the tip of their finger into the baby’s mouth to suckle.

“Stick the tip of your pinky in the kids mouth. It should be a size equal to mum lactating nipple. By the time the kid realises it isn’t mum, they’re calm,” one dad offered.

“My little finger used to work,” another shared.

The topic of breastfeeding dads has been courting a lot of attention of late. Earlier this year the first ever ‘chestfeeding kit’, enabling fathers to breastfeed was revealed.

The kit, which contains lab-produced female hormones, is said to allow dads to fulfill a similar role to breastfeeding mothers.

Marie-Claire Springham, 24, created the kit after learning of fathers suffering from post-natal depression, in part due to feeling “left out” of the breastfeeding process.

And last summer a new dad stepped forward to aid his wife by breastfeeding their baby following her difficult birth.

After being told the importance of getting C-section babies feeding as quickly as possible and that it may help his wife to breastfeed when she recovered from the birth, the new dad readily agreed to give breastfeeding his newborn a go.

So after attaching a plastic nipple shield with a tube that was linked to a formula-filled syringe to his chest, the dad was able to give his daughter her first breastfeed.

READ MORE: Half of new mums feel breastfeeding guilt

He’s not the only breastfeeding dad either. Last year Anthony Favors genius parenting hack which allows him to breastfeed his daughter took the Internet by storm.

The dad-of-five came up with a simple, yet clever trick of cutting a small hole in his shirt and poking the teat of a bottle filled with his wife’s breastmilk through the gap to create a ‘functional boob’, which allowed him to ‘nurse’ his baby daughter while her mum is at work.