Most Supportive Husband 2024
Winner: Delon Chen
Delon Chen was nominated by his wife, Elaine Yip:
My husband has been very supportive throughout the past 11 months of breastfeeding my baby. To share why I feel he deserves this nomination:
I went for a slipped disc surgery 3 months after I gave birth. My husband was supportive physically, emotionally and mentally. My surgery was about 4 hours. Including pre op and post op, I was out of it for about 6 hours. I was more stressed about how the surgery will affect my breastfeeding than the surgery itself. I was anxious about becoming engorged as at that time I was latching my baby every 2 hours, and I was a super oversupply mum. 6 hours (or more) without pumping/latching… I was so stressed!
My husband was patient in assuring me, and never dismissed my worries. He came up with a game plan the day before my surgery – He helped by manually hand expressing my boobs once I was out of theatre and in the ward (even while I was quite drowsy and in a pissy mood from the pain lol). It was a very stressful moment for him to hand express while I was lying flat in bed and raging from the pain, ensuring he applied some cold compression etc, but he did it. When I awoke, he also helped with washing my pumps and setting it up every 3 hours while I was hospitalized for 3 days as I was not able to walk. And he did so with not a single complaint.
After surgery when I was home, I was in a lot of pain. I did not want to eat the strong pain killers that were not BF safe (oxynorm). My husband took over the majority of my baby’s physical care (showering, diapers, putting her to sleep, playing etc), so that I could rest in bed and have minimal pain without pain killers – so that I can restart breastfeeding my baby.
He would wake up every time my baby is crying for milk. Walk to her room to carry her to me to breastfeed, wait until im done, and then carry her back to sleep. Some people suggested bottle feeding her, so that she could ‘last longer’ at night. But he was supportive in my wish to 100% latch my baby where possible even when it made his sleep severely lacking as well (my baby at times would wake up every 2 hours at night!) all while he was still working. This lasted nearly 2 months!Right now, I’m at the 11 month mark of my breastfeeding journey. Now that I am back to work and have fallen sick every other week with a flu, GE etc, my milk supply is drastically decreasing. I have been feeling frustrated and emotional, but my husband has remained supportive. He did say that there is no pressure for me to breastfeed if it is causing so much stress, but since I have decided to continue to try and persevere, he has been showing his support by helping to wash pump parts, setting a midnight and 3 am alarm clock and waking me up to pump (because I can totally sleep through anything), even boiling mama tang and all sorts of random ‘hear say’ methods to boost supply.
Shortlisted Nominees:
- Srighavan Subramanian (centre, in grey)
- Jared Kong (3 from left)
- Teo Boon Hock (right, in blue)
Srighavan Subramanian was nominated by Aarthi Narayanan (Wife):
(M)y husband, was the one (who) briefed me on the health benefits of breastfeeding. He always reiterated breastfeeding as a natural process and to be confident in my body’s ability to produce milk. Before delivery, he encouraged me to embrace my breasts and be confident about hand expression. After delivery, he worked together with the lactation consultants to help me position the baby to get a good latch. He taught me how to assemble and use the pump when I was down because the baby was jaundiced. He never helped me lose perspective of long sight.
He stayed with me throughout the first 4 months, waking up with every feed, offering me small treats because every time I breastfed was a small win. Everytime the PD appreciated baby’s weight gain, my husband made sure to appreciate me as well. When it was time for me to return to work, he helped transition the baby to bottle feeds patiently and motivated me to continue breastfeeding – he would reschedule his meetings and be with baby whenever we worked from home to make sure I had time to pump. He is always one step ahead of me, reading and teaching me about breastfeeding. I appreciate him a lot for being with me; without his support I would have given up 🙂
Many a times, I came close to quitting because of low supply and other issues. My husband always helped me set the perspective right and motivated me to continue feeding and pumping.
One time, my baby wouldn’t latch on one side. He scoured the internet for solutions and showed me accounts of people with similar issues which helped me feel better. At midnight, when I would feel the loneliest, he would cheer me up with an ice cream – (it may) seem like a small thing but it really motivated me. Breastfeeding is a difficult, time-consuming task. Often, he (would change) his schedule and helped with the baby so I could rest after pumping.
Jared Kong was nominated by Jiezhen Wu (Wife):
Jared has been a pillar of support in my breastfeeding journey from the very beginning and my number one supporter responsible for the fact (that) I was able to nurse our older child into her toddlerhood, and then into pregnancy and birth and now tandem feeding our two little ones. From learning about the basics of breastfeeding with me when we were expecting our first child, to being the postpartum papa and brewing red date tea and keeping me hydrated and baking lactation cookies when baby arrived, to helping me get comfortable as I learned to feed our baby everywhere, and capturing those beautiful moments in photos, he has been there for all the good times and also the challenging ones.
Through the blebs and the late nights power pumping, taking me to to all my appointments with the lactation consultant at the hospital as we tried to figure out why our daughter wasn’t gaining weight as fast as she should, holding my hand as I cried while pumping and helping to give our baby top ups of expressed breastmilk to help her grow, celebrating check wins along the way and also standing firm and having my back whenever someone made any comment about why I’m still breastfeeding our toddler and now helping me navigate the complexities of tandem feeding a toddler and newborn at once. I don’t know if I could have done this or made it this far without his support – and I am so so grateful to have a partner who values breastfeeding as much as I do.
It made me feel less alone and more confident in my choice to breastfeed and to do it for as long as it made sense for our children and for me and for our family. He respected all my choices and that helped me feel seen and heard – and in those challenging moments where I wondered if I had enough supply for my baby or if we should keep going, I found that reassuring support in leaning on him to know that we were in this together.
We decided before baby was born that I would be responsible for all input (i.e. breastfeeding) and he would be responsible for all output – so I just nursed baby on demand round the clock and he changed all diapers, took care of all the laundry, and everything else so I could just focus on recovery and rest and connecting with baby. He also knew I had secret dreams of tandem nursing one day so when the moment came he made sure to capture the moment for me 🥹
Teo Boon Hock was nominated by Valerie Lin (Wife):
My first child was born right at the start of (the) Covid pandemic. After my confinement ended, it was the start of Singapore’s first Circuit Breaker. As my husband (Teo Boon Hock) is an essential worker, I had to move into my mother’s place for help with baby while he goes out to work during Circuit Breaker. As we are physically apart and see each other a few times a week, he printed out motivational quotes on photo cards and pasted them all over the walls of my bedroom to keep me going with breastfeeding, even though it was very tough for me back then.
Back then during confinement, due to interference by the confinement nanny, my child was on mixed feeding about 50% formula, 50% breastmilk. My child also developed bottle preference. When he visited my mum’s place after work (usually at night) or in the late afternoon to see my child and me, he’ll wash all the sets of pump parts and sterilise them so that I could use them once I’m awake from resting. My husband encouraged me at each visit to latch and relax and we would watch comedy shows together. In addition, during the visits, he would help prepare breastmilk (if there is freshly pumped ones in the fridge) or formula milk using the Supplementary Nursing System when he sees my child refusing to latch or is crying out for more milk after latching.
When Circuit Breaker was finally over, he would bring me out to places like the Sembawang Hot Spring park and we will sit in the cafe and I’ll latch my child. That’s when for the first time, I actually heard my baby swallow multiple times and gulping during latching. After that experience, I felt so much more confident that I have milk and I can keep latching my baby on demand. Gradually, it became an exclusive latch-on-demand situation for me after that and sometimes I’d be latching my baby all evening until night time on the bed until she started having solids.
My husband (also) kept encouraging me and helped protect all the opportunities for me to latch my baby on demand, especially when visitors came to see us and when we went to visit my in-laws and friends.
