11/04/2025
Early play and modelling behaviors can influence future attitudes toward caregiving and feeding choices.
🧠The girl on the left: Children who babywear (pretend to carry or "wear" their dolls close to their bodies) are engaging in nurturing behaviors that emphasize physical closeness and responsiveness — both of which align closely with the experiences and values associated with breastfeeding.
🍼The little one on the right: Children who are encouraged to bottle-feed their dolls may associate infant care primarily with bottle feeding, which can normalize that method as the default way to feed a baby.
So, a child who babywears is generally more likely to have positive attitudes toward breastfeeding later on, compared with a child whose play mainly centers around bottle-feeding dolls.
To be clear, this isn’t deterministic — a child’s eventual feeding choices (or attitudes toward them) are shaped by many factors: family norms, cultural context, exposure to breastfeeding in real life, and parental modeling. But play patterns do reflect and reinforce what children see as “normal,” so babywearing tends to align more with behaviors and values associated with breastfeeding.
💁♀️PRO TIP: Throw out the bottle! Encourage your child to model mothering through breastfeeding.
📸Have a picture of your little one nursing a toy? Share it!
🤱Has your little one asked you to nurse one of their toys? They get the importance. Your milk feeds and heals.
