Parents must be sensitive to the special needs of breastfeeding children. Children's basic sleeping, feeding, and waking cycles should be maintained to limit disruption in the children's routine. Forcibly changing these routines due to the upheaval of parental disagreement is detrimental to the physical health and emotional well-being of the children. On the other hand, it is important that the children be able to bond with both parents.
1. For children being exclusively breastfed, the nursing child can still have frequent parenting time with the other parent. The amount of time will be guided by/subject to the infant's feeding schedule, progressing to more time as the child grows older. Both parents should be mindful that a feeding may occur, and the child may return to time with the other parent after the feeding.2. Where both parents have been engaged in an ongoing caregiving routine with a nursing child, the same caregiving arrangement should be continued as much as possible to maintain stability for the children.3. If the other parent has been caring for the children overnight or for twenty-four hour periods while the nursing mother sleeps or works, that arrangement should/shall continue.4. A mother may not use breastfeeding to deprive the other parent of time with the children. If, for example, a nursing mother uses day care or a babysitter for the children, the same accommodations (i.e., bottle feeding with breast milk or formula, or increased time between breast feeding sessions) used with the day care provider or babysitter will be used with the other parent, if the other parent is capable of personally providing the same caregiving.SDCL tit. 25, ch. 4A, app TO CHAPTER 25-4A, Guideline 1, 1.8