Ever met a tired and cranky breastfed baby?
Chances are good that if you didn’t have a lactating boob on your person then you probably weren’t very popular.
Breastfed babies are all about the boob. Breakfast boob, bedtime boob, boobin’ round the clock. It’s an all round boob-fest.
Now cast your mind back. When was the last time you saw a lactating boob in print?
We’re hazarding a guess that the answer is ‘never.’ Because boobs and breastfeeding rarely feature in baby books. Until now.
The boob book for babies
What Does Baby Want is a brand new breed of picture book all about what baby wants the most. And let’s just say it’s not the shiny tambourine or cuddly teddy. Baby wants – you guessed it – a boob, and anything else is, quite frankly, a little bit shit.
Celebrating the power of the boob
What Does Baby Want celebrates the power of the boob to overcome even the nastiest of upsets and reddest of baby faces. Using simple baby-friendly language and pictures, it tells the story of a baby who becomes cranky as the pages turn. Does baby want their bouncy ball? Nup. What about their cuddly teddy? No dice.
As baby gets more upset, the mystery is solved. Baby wants boob. The second to last illustration shows a happy baby latched onto the boob. And the final page? A snoozing bub with a full tummy.
In Australia, 96% of mums start out breastfeeding their bub. That equates to around 298,659 of the approximate 311,104 babies born each year. That’s a hell of a lot of breastmilk. Curiously however, it’s more common to see a baby being bottle fed in a book rather than breastfed.
It’s something publisher Phaidon noticed when deciding to go ahead with the book. “We’ve found only four books that feature a child nursing,” noted Cecily Kaiser, Phaidon’s Publishing Director for children’s books. “There are by far more bottles than breasts.”
There’s nothing we love more than celebrating the different ways that mamas feed their babies and think this book is a fabulous way to get behind boobin’ mamas. Because boobs are just boobs when there’s a baby attached.
We reckon this little gem makes an ace baby shower gift or present for a breastfeeding mama who knows all too well how it feels to be an all you can eat milk bar.
You can get your own copy of What Does Baby Want over at Booktopia.
Struggling with breastfeeding? Check out our post on the 4 most common breastfeeding issues and how to fix them.
