When I discovered I was pregnant with Wren, my first instinct was to read. Books about pregnancy, books about sleep, books about child behavior, whatever someone recommended, I was game.

Yet, somehow, in all that reading, I never came across a single book about breastfeeding. It’s not like breastfeeding wasn’t mentioned here and there - there was various commentary on breastfeeding versus formula, the “right” breast feeding pillows to buy, and so on - but for all the talk about birth, breastfeeding seemed like a footnote.

The day after Wren was born, a lactation consultant came to our room in the hospital, observed her tiny mouth making attempts to breast feed, and gave Wren’s latch a half-hearted thumbs up. But when Wren was weighed at her first doctor appointment, a couple days after birth, she had lost more weight than expected, triggering feeding concerns. The hospital lactation specialist vaguely told me to “pump more” and handed me some free formula to feed Wren from a bottle if she seemed hungry. I left the appointment feeling confused, overwhelmed, and a little worried about Wren.

In the coming days, Wren’s feeding seemed to go downhill - she sort of tried to eat, then cried. I pumped and we fed her from a bottle. Of course, I then went on the internet, which told me we were spoiling her with bottles. For days, we fed Wren drop by drop from a spoon or syringe.

The next hospital lactation consultant we saw, Doris, was more reassuring than the first. She listened to our concerns, observed Wren’s latch, and watched her take a bottle. She then bestowed upon us a nipple shield - basically a plastic nipple that you place on the breast. The shield helped Wren latch, especially when we sprinkled some breast milk on it. (Doris called this, “the chips and salsa” to “keep the customer happy.”) Doris assured us that Wren would improve in latching over time.

A few months passed. At 3 months old, Wren still wasn’t latching without the nipple shield, which was now the bane of my existence - it would slip off, or get lost in the dark while feeding at night, or just not be in the diaper bag when I needed to feed Wren.

Suddenly, with no warning, Wren stopped nursing at all - even with the nipple shield - and would only feed from a bottle. She’d cry, refuse to nurse, guzzle a bottle, then spit most of it back up. Commence nine straight days in which I was pumping all of Wren’s meals, which meant pumping every few hours around the clock, then feeding her bottles. I was also doing a lot of crying. All Doris could come up with at this point was that maybe Wren had reflux, and she suggested prescription medication. The medication didn’t help.

Luckily, during this dark time, a cousin of Peter’s stopped by with some hand-me-downs. Upon hearing our situation, he suggested that Wren’s symptoms sounded a lot like tongue tie - something our hospital lactation consultant had dismissed with a wave of her hand - and that perhaps we might like to see the lactation consultant that he and his wife love, Krystal Key.

When Krystal came to our house for her first appointment, she looked in Wren’s mouth for about 10 seconds before confirming that Wren had tongue tie. We immediately scheduled an appointment to have Wren’s tongue tie resolved, with a short laser procedure. The day after the procedure Wren nursed… without the nipple shield!

This is what a crazed mother looks like when a nine day breastfeeding strike finally ends. Pop the post-frenectomy champagne!! Then please take this baby away from me and let me take a nap.

In the following months, Krystal not only helped us resolve Wren’s tongue tie, but helped us with a variety of feeding questions - from pumping, to allergies, to milk supply, and even, finally, weaning breast milk altogether.

I did a lot of Googling during my breast feeding low points. After I met Krystal, I could finally quit my search engine addiction and go straight to a reassuring, helping, empowering source.

Krystal was kind enough to share her knowledge with me in an interview earlier this year. Ironically, it wasn’t until Wren stopped breastfeeding (this week!!) that I finally had the time and energy to share this interview.

Who are you, and what do you do? How do you describe what you do?

I am Krystal Key. I am an IBCLC, which is a really long acronym for Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant. I help people feed their babies.

When we hear “lactation consultant” we think, “breastfeeding” which is, of course, a big part of what I help with. But a good lactation consultant is so much more than that, because life is more than that.

Even if we set out to breastfeed, sometimes life throws us a curveball and we don't end up exclusively breastfeeding. For as little information and guidance as it feels like there is on breastfeeding, there's even less on formula feeding or combo feeding. And it's not like those families don't have questions and it's not like those families don't deserve support.

It all falls under the same umbrella. It's all feeding issues.

What is an IBCLC anyways?

IBCLC is a worldwide credential. I could pick up and move to Norway, and I could be a lactation consultant there. Basically, it's the medical professional that helps with breastfeeding support.

There are different types of breastfeeding support. At the top of the food chain is the IBCLC. The IBCLC is a college level degree. Then there are CLCs, Certified Lactation Counselors, breastfeeding specialists, and lactation specialists.

There are actually multiple pathways to become an IBCLC. There is a more medical approach, the kind of lactation consultant you find in the hospital usually. They're usually a healthcare provider first, so a nurse or a doctor. Then they'll do additional breastfeeding specific education, then hands-on hours in the hospital with parents and babies.

I do not have any other medical degree. I did all the medical education required to become an IBCLC, which basically boiled down to about 900 hours' worth of breastfeeding specific education: anatomy and physiology through the lens of breastfeeding, genetics through the lens of breastfeeding, all that kind of thing. Then I did over 300 hours with parents and babies.

I don't know if this is completely universal, but one thing I have definitely noticed here in the Portland area is that the people that get their clinical hours in the hospital system often see the first three days of a baby’s life over and over and over again, since they are providing care before moms and babies are discharged.

I got my hours outside of the hospital setting, directly supervised by other lactation consultants. During that time, I worked with babies who were anywhere from three hours old to three years old. It was much broader than the experience you get in training through the hospital system.

That's one reason why sometimes there feels like a big difference between those of us in private practice and what you typically get in the hospital. The education background is often more broad or varied outside of the hospital.

Earlier you mentioned that there's not very much out there about breastfeeding and there's even less about formula and even less about combo feeding. How do you figure out the best feeding approach for the families you serve?

A big part of how I practice is trying my damnedest to meet families where they're at, to get clarity on their personal goals. I want to help families figure out what their path of least resistance is.

Some families say: we want to breastfeed. Then that's where we start untangling that ball of yarn. For some families, it's actually, I really want my baby to have human milk and I don't care if it happens at the breast or if it happens in the bottle. Sometimes it's the converse of that, where there are families that are like, I don't really care how much human milk I'm making, I just want to make sure my baby is happy when they are eating at the breast, and I'm happy to top them up or supplement via formula.

It’s all about helping families to be comfortable and honest with themselves about what they want out of it. There's so much stigma attached to how we feed our babies that I feel like sometimes when I'm working with families, there's this default answer of, “I want to breastfeed, I have to breastfeed.”

But it's okay if you don't want to. It's okay if the trade offs involved don't feel worth it to you. Let's help you find the path that helps you get as many of the benefits as we can without you feeling like you're bending over backwards or making yourself miserable.

Let’s say your lactation consultant appointment ends. The IBCLC leaves your house or you leave their office. If you have a good lactation consultant, and it’s a good fit, how should you feel at that point?

Even if you're seeing the supposed “best” lactation consultant in the world, if you don't feel like you're seeing progress or you don't feel like you're being supported in the way you need to be supported, it's time for a second opinion, or a third opinion. Being “good” at your job as a lactation consultant doesn’t mean you’ll be the right fit for every family or every situation.

If you have the right lactation consultant for you, you should feel comfortable in their presence and you should be able to be honest with them. You should be able to say: “I pumped six times yesterday, even though the plan was eight.” Or being able to acknowledge your stress: “Hey, we're about to put my baby on the scale and I'm freaking out inside about it.” You should be able to say that to your lactation consultant. They should not make you feel bad. They should not make you feel nervous or anxious. You shouldn't be afraid to tell them the truth. You shouldn't be afraid to ask them questions.

If you don't leave a lactation appointment feeling like you have a good plan, and that you’re seeing progress, or that you have good support, those are all red flags.

What are the most common challenges that you see parents face feeding their babies?

The thing I see most often is tongue-tie. Because I’m not hospital-affiliated, I'm often the last in line for undiagnosed feeding issues. Many of my families have made their way through their pediatrician, they've made their way through hospital lactation, they've made their way through all these different people that missed it or ignored it or downplayed it. So I see a lot of tongue ties, simply because many families I see are stubborn enough to keep trying to solve their baby’s feeding challenges.

I also see a lot of concern in parents that are worried about milk supply. Honestly, a lot of these fall into the category of perceived low milk supply rather than actual low milk supply. Social media is really good at making us feel like we aren’t producing enough milk . People open up their freezer on Instagram and it's like rows and rows and rows of milk. You don't need to have that level of supply to feed your baby.

How do I know if I have low milk supply? When I was struggling to feed Wren, I would go down Google search rabbit holes and hear about low milk supply. Then I’d go on Instagram and see women pumping, and they’d have two giant 6oz bottles totally full from a few minutes of pumping. That would make me feel concerned about my supply, since I’d get three ounces total in an average pumping session. How do you know if you actually have a supply issue?

As a society, we're really bad at knowing what normal looks like when it comes to babies. You’ll see these giant eight ounce baby bottles around. I could probably count on both hands the number of babies I’ve seen in the last 10 years that breastfeed that much in a sitting. For most babies at any age, a large feeding is five ounces of milk at a time. But when we see these giant bottles, it's really easy to think your baby's supposed to eat that much and that you’re supposed to produce that much.

If you could bust any baby feeding myths forever, what would you choose?

First of all: the myths about supply and feeding size. Yes, it's normal for your three-month-old baby to only take three ounces at a time. Yes, it is normal for your nine-month-old baby to only take three ounces at a time. It would be great if we had realistic expectations about how much babies eat at a time.

The other myth is that you should wait until you’re in crisis mode to see a lactation consultant. If I could just magically roll through the city and see everyone in one day, that would be fantastic. But I usually do have at least a week long wait before people are able to get in with me.

When people reach out to me before their baby is born, I encourage them to book a visit with me in advance for a week after their baby is due. If the visit is already on the calendar, even if the day comes and everything's going swimmingly, we can keep it going that way.

You don't have to wait to have a problem before you reach out for support. Even when feeding is going wonderfully, there are still moments that are hard. There are still things coming your way that you may have concerns about - returning to work, learning to use your pump, and so on.

The third thing I’d love for everyone to know: babies typically poop every day, or at least every other day. When it gets less frequent than that, then we want to know why that's happening. Sometimes the weight gain is good, the baby is happy, they're not constipated, everything is on the up and up, they just happen to poop every three to four days. But for the babies that we don't know why that's happening, it's actually an early sign that milk supply or milk consumption might be going down. So you can solve that problem early before it affects weight gain, if you can spot the issue early.

How do I know if feeding is going well? I remember in the first month or two I thought feeding Wren was going relatively well. And then I saw my friend feeding her baby, who was the same age as Wren, and it took five minutes for her baby to be done eating. Meanwhile, Wren was feeding for 45 minutes and she still wasn’t full! That was an early sign to me that she had something like tongue tie. How do I know if I’m having the normal struggles of a new parent figuring out how to feed their baby, or if something about my feeding needs fixing?

There is a huge range of normal. Even for the same baby, depending on how old they are and what their gestational age was at birth, what they're capable of does shift and change over time.

The general rule of thumb is: if your baby is peeing, pooping, and gaining weight, your feedings don't hurt and you feel like you got this, you probably got this. Obviously, if the baby is not peeing, pooping, or gaining weight, we have to resolve that . If you are in pain, that is always a red flag. It's really, really common to have some slight discomfort or tenderness in the beginning. But flat out pain isn't right. This idea of like, “it's going to hurt in the beginning, just give it X amount of time” is actually really bad advice. If it hurts in the beginning, you should be getting help, because we should be able to fix it.

The final one is, do you feel like you're horrifically overwhelmed? In your case, when you feel like all you ever do all day long is feed the baby, there's no time to nap, there's no time to eat, there's no time to do anything but feed the baby, then that can be a red flag. In the first week or two-ish, it's not unusual for feedings to take upwards of 30 minutes per side. In the beginning, it's pretty common that you feel like all you ever do is feed the baby. But as they get a few weeks older and as your milk supply builds, it gets more and more efficient so that by the time a baby is three months old, it doesn't surprise me in the least if their entire feeding on both sides is done in less than five minutes. They can get real darn efficient as time goes on.

If it feels like something's not working the way it's supposed to, basically, listen to your gut, which is something that we are often not encouraged to do as new parents and not encouraged to do as women. If your gut tells you something is up, you need to seek out help until you figure out what's going on with that. And if people try to give you the brush off, it’s time for second opinions, third opinions.

My biggest pet peeve is when people say to me, “Yeah, I'm having pain, but my prior lactation consultant said the latch looks great.” It can look great from the outside, but there can be things going on on the inside with the baby’s mouth anatomy. If you're having pain, that's not okay. If something isn't working and people keep trying to tell you that it's okay, unless they're giving you concrete explanations and reasons why it's okay for that to be happening, then it’s time for second opinions.

What if my baby isn't gaining weight? As soon as you take your baby to their first check-up appointment, the medical establishment makes it clear that weight gain or loss is the main indicator of feeding early on. It’s one of the key indicators you just gave, too, of feeding not going well. What would be your approach to that if a baby is not gaining weight or they have lost a little weight?

The first tenant of lactation consulting is: feed the baby. If weight gain isn't where it should be, we figure out our plan of how we get that extra food into the baby to get their weight on track. Sometimes that means pumping. Sometimes that means trying donor milk or formula. In an older baby (12+ months) it sometimes means that we're beefing up the calories in their table foods.

Then of course, we need to make sure the baby's able to do their part. In my experience, most of the time, it's the baby's fault when feeding isn’t going well.

That’s honestly refreshing to hear. Let’s blame the baby more!

We always blame ourselves. All parents blame themselves if the weight gain or supply isn't where it's supposed to be. They're always like, “I'm not pumping frequently enough.” It’s like - you're nursing your baby 12 times a day and you're pumping 4 times a day on top of that, and you're telling me you're not doing enough? That's not what's going on here. {Part of my job is making sure the baby is capable of doing their part. Because a baby that is capable is a million times better at getting the milk out of the breast than a pump is.

It's often something's going on with baby, that their anatomy is not working the way it's supposed to. Either they can't make the motions that are necessary for extracting milk from the breast, like a tongue or lip tie, or sometimes it's something as straightforward as positioning, and the alignment at the breast isn't as good as it could be.

It’s often little things like that, which is why we get that advice that if we just push through the first two weeks, or push through the first six weeks, a lot of those little things self-correct over time. But that's another thing I say to families all the time: if we can get things to a better place by day six rather than week six, why would we not do that? Days and weeks are really long with a newborn.

Oh yeah. That would have been a game changer to discover Wren's tongue-tie in our first few weeks instead of at three-and-a-half months.

On that topic, tell me about tongue-tie. Early on I Googled, “How do I know if my baby has tongue-tie?” The results were basically like, your doctor will see it, and that was it.

What are the most common signs of tongue tie? What should people watch for, especially considering that often medical lactation professionals don't accurately diagnose tongue tie?

Tongue tie really boils down to function. A lot of healthcare providers are not super knowledgeable about how the tongue functions during breastfeeding. Many healthcare providers will be like, well, they can stick the tongue out, so it's fine. Yes - being able to stick the tongue forward and out is really important for speech stuff in the future. But when it comes to breastfeeding, the motion that is most important is that the tongue can lift upwards. When a baby nurses, the tongue is supposed to be able to make a wavelike motion to massage milk out of the breast.

A baby that is tongue-tied and cannot do that, they tend to default to either chewing the milk out with their jaw, which is painful, or they let mom's body do all of the work and wait for milk to come to them. What happens in a lot of cases is that those techniques work fine until babies get a few months old - milk supply at that point requires more work from the baby to stimulate milk flow, and if a baby is tongue tied they can’t do that work.

Pain and/or weight gain not being where it should be are probably the most obvious of the "red flags" for tongue tie! There's a lot of gaslighting around tongue tie, so I always consider it a major red flag if a family needs to do anything beyond nurse the baby (triple feeding, topping up with a bottle, pumping, etc.) without a clear explanation why.

If someone tells you the latch looks great (but you have pain) that's a big ol' red flag to me as well! If it hurts, something is wrong with the latch. Period. Pain is not normal (even in the beginning when the baby is very little), even though it can be incredibly common! Pain is your body's way of alerting you to an issue. Sometimes it's a minor issue like your positioning is a little off, or your baby does better in a different position, but brushing it off instead of getting help could backfire in the long run when there's an actual issue that needs to be addressed.

I also consider it a red flag if someone tells a family their baby isn't tied because they can stick the tongue out. Sticking the tongue out is important for a wide variety of issues, but the motion that's important for feeding is lifting up.

There's really not many studies on tongue tie. All of our studies on tongue-tie are being done now. Because most doctors and nurses weren't taught about tongue tie in medical school, it's understandable that unless they were really open minded, they were just going with what they were taught and are ignoring or disregarding tongue tie as an issue.

Does my baby have allergies? How do I know?

Generally speaking, allergies are way, way less common than Dr. Google thinks they are. With my clients, if they are suspicious about an allergy, we might try an elimination diet for mom (in the case of breast milk fed babies) to see if that helps, then slowly add things back in. The red flags that I look for in babies when it comes to sensitivities or allergies is is it messing with your quality of life?

Obviously, in more severe situations where it's leading to colic-like symptoms or a baby that is not able to gain weight or a baby that's refusing to eat, okay, that's pretty severe. We intervene, we deal with that. Whereas there are some babies where the only presentation they're popping out is some weird skin stuff like eczema or cradle cap.

I am way more liberal about this than some other lactation consultants. If baby has a sensitivity, if it's not messing with your quality of life, I always leave it in the parents hands to decide whether or not to cut things out.

I mean, if you're a hardcore dairy lover and your baby has issues with it, but you can't live without cheese, if the worst of it is that your baby is cranky for a day or two after you have it once in a while and it's not otherwise messing with their weight gain or causing constipation or making them really unhappy, then it's like, well, you get to decide. You're the parent. I always leave that up to parents.

Is it ok to feed my baby from a bottle? What about "nipple confusion"? When can I start feeding a baby from a bottle without threatening my breastfeeding relationship?

I'm firmly of the mindset that any way you feed your baby human milk is breastfeeding whether it involves bottles, syringes, tube feeding, or supplementing with formula! With that said, when nursing directly works well for you as a family, I recommend holding off on introducing bottles until baby is about 4 weeks old because it allows baby the opportunity to set you up for a great milk supply (assuming everything is working the way we expect it to) because our bodies are hardwired to respond better to babies than to pumps.

Luckily, nipple confusion has been proven to not be an issue. The issue we see coming into play more often than not is a flow preference because bottles can be incredibly easy to feed from. From a survival standpoint, it totally makes sense - if baby can lay back and eat without having to work for it (like with traditional bottle feeding) why would they be willing to put in the work with the breast?

As long as families know to make sure baby is working for it with the bottle (with paced bottle feeding) then baby should be able to go back and forth between the two easily. This is an area where a good IBCLC should be knowledgeable, and helpful too, so it's definitely a good idea to reach out to a lactation consultant if there are issues with bottle feeding.

Wren enjoys a bottle. Peter enjoys a turn in the large comfortable chair. I enjoy a break. Win-win-win.

What are the benefits of combo feeding in your opinion? Because I feel like you hear about breastfeeding, and you hear about formula, and every now and then, I’ll hear from a friend that their baby gets a bottle with formula while she’s at work. Or their partner does bedtime with a bottle of formula every night. Combo feeding seems like a great fit for families, but it seems like people usually feel like they have to pick one or the other.

Oh, totally. People are so black and white about it. And that's such a bummer because when it comes down to it, if supplementing with formula makes breastfeeding more enjoyable and sustainable for you, then that's the right choice for you. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.

A lot of families don't realize that they have the option of doing both. Like you said, I feel like a lot of families don't talk about it when they are supplementing with formula, because they're worried that someone's going to make them feel bad about it.

For example, a parent that is pumping at work and they are bringing home X amount of milk, but their baby needs a different amount of milk. They need to make up the difference with formula. Okay, that's not a bad thing. That peace of mind that’s keeping the stress levels down, that's obviously a good thing.

Do you have a favorite formula or a brand of formula that you recommend? Because I think that can feel very fraught as well.

I always tell parents, first off: formula is regulated by the FDA. It all has to meet certain standards. So choose what's affordable, what's accessible, and read labels. If your baby can handle animal proteins, some animal protein should be the prime ingredient, like cow milk or goat milk. And then that second ingredient really should be lactose. When it's something like corn syrup solids or brown rice solids, that's not ideal, unless we're dealing with some sensitivity or allergy where that formula is our best option. But if lactose is the second ingredient, that’s ideal. Human milk is filled with lactose. That's how we grow a human brain. That is the natural form of sugar that we're looking for, for babies. We want to keep it simple if we can.

Is it ok to give my baby a pacifier? When can I start giving my baby a pacifier?

I'm totally pro-pacifier if it makes your life with baby easier! I definitely have colleagues that don't agree with that, but I feel like they never experienced the joy of a baby who is a cranky hot mess because their belly is too full. I always tell families that if baby can nurse without causing pain, and is gaining weight as expected, it's totally fine to introduce a pacifier as a tool to help digestion, sleep, or make things like car rides and diaper changes easier for everyone.

There is a pacifier in this photo, but there is also a cute belly button, which is the main reason I felt morally obligated to include it in this post.

Do you have a recommended bottle?

With bottles, it's all marketing. It's genius marketing. But there really is no such thing as a bottle that can be most like the breast. The breast has 5 to 12 nipple pore openings, and those openings are controlled by sphincters. The breast flows and then it stops, and then it flows and then it stops based on what baby is telling it to do as they're nursing. All bottles are just holes. When they say this bottle is most like the breast, there is literally ... That's not possible. The best bottle is the one your baby is willing to take.

What is more important than what your bottle looks like is how you offer the bottle. Traditional bottle feeding where baby is in a fully reclined position and that bottle is fully tipped, their choices are eat or drown. So babies will eat way, way faster than they potentially should be, which is not ideal for a lot of reasons, but it can cause issues for a breastfed baby. So the thing that's really important is to do what's referred to as paced bottle feeding, which really just breaks down as babies should be in an upright position.

The bottle nipple should only be about halfway full so that baby can control it, so they can pause to breathe, so they can take breaks if they need to. Paced bottle feeding is much closer to the breastfeeding experience and will also allow babies to be able to go back and forth easily between breast and bottle without having big opinions one way versus the other.

A lot of people never learn to bottle feed correctly, because who taught you how to bottle feed? We see bottle feeding in public. We see bottle feeding on TV. We don't know what we don't know. So a lot of people that bottle feed the traditional way are like, yeah, my baby is really gassy or my baby spits up a ton. And they don't know what's causing that. Then when someone clues them in about paced bottle feeding, it's like, oh, these things are so much better, I wish someone had told me.

What about the best pump?

As far as the best pump, I mean, once again, that's also situational. Generally speaking, pumps that have the ability to have multiple speeds in suction settings are really, really beneficial because not every person responds to the pump at the same rate.

There’s a lot of different companies that have that. Spectra has one like that. There's a lot of options out there that are fantastic.

The other thing about pumping that a lot of people don't realize is no matter what pump you have, there's technique that comes into play. A lot of people think that you can just strap in and you just sit back and let the pump do its thing.

When you're pumping, it's important to make sure you're using your pump correctly. And that might mean asking a lactation consultant to teach you, or going down the rabbit hole of YouTube tutorials and joining new parent support groups to hear how other people do it. Because oftentimes the instruction manual doesn't cover the details of pumping.

Pump instruction manuals are horrible. They're very bad.

Definitely. Doing the learning to ensure you're using your pump correctly, and then making sure that you're really hands-on while you're pumping. Massage the heck out of your breasts while you're pumping. It shouldn't be painful, of course. But you'll get more milk in less time. A hands-free pumping bra is definitely a game changer in making that easier.

Having good pumping technique is a really, really big game changer when you're a working parent, when you are outside the home, and you are an exclusive pumper. It can change how much milk you're bringing home at the end of the day.

Of course, the last piece of it is the hormonal side of it, which is really mental, which is really hard because we can't always just will ourselves into being relaxed. But basically, remembering that feeding your baby is part of our rest and digest process rather than our fight or flight. If you are feeling tense or anxious or if you're having pain, those things work against you when you're trying to get your milk out of your body, whether it's with your baby or with a pump.

So if you can take a little bit of extra time to get your ducks in a row before you pump so that you're a little bit more chill, a little bit more relaxed, that will help. Definitely trick yourself into it wherever you can. Anything that releases oxytocin will help: a warm beverage, some tasty food, putting on something on Netflix that gives you the warm fuzzies or belly laughs, that type of stuff will help with pumping output.

I like all of those too, because that's a way your partner can be engaged in your pumping experience. It’s like - thanks for offering to help, I know what you can do: you can make me a hot beverage. You can do the laundry. You can do all these things that will make me feel relaxed while I pump.

That's really huge. A lot of partners are like, I want to help, I want to be supportive, and I don't have the boobs. I don't know how to do that.

In the early days, the new family unit is like nesting dolls. You've got baby in the middle, then you’ve often got birthing and/or nursing parent around baby, because that's baby's natural habitat, and then you’ve got dad or partner around mom.

Then you have your overarching community, where you have your postpartum doulas, you have your family, you have your friends, you have your people. But really, at the core, it's parents and baby. So whoever the nursing parent is, is making sure that they're eating, making sure they have water, making sure they're sleeping, all those are really important things. Taking care of the nursing or pumping parent is taking care of the baby.

It strikes me as we talk through all of this, that this is all so fraught. Feeding our babies is full of hot button topics. What have you learned about having difficult or triggering conversations by doing this work?

I would say probably the number one thing that I find myself saying to struggling parents is that I've never seen a family not breastfeed because they didn't try hard enough. It is never that you didn't do enough or you didn't try hard enough or whatever. When breastfeeding isn’t working and parents make a change, every single time it is because they’re willing to put their mental health first, which is the best thing that you can do for your baby. Your baby needs you healthy more than they need any specific kind of milk.

So if you don't have the support or the resources or the time or the information or even the inclination to breastfeed, that's not worth feeling bad about. I've never met a family where it was like, if only they just tried a little bit harder, if they just stuck with it a little bit longer, everything would have gone perfectly.

There’s only so much time, there's only so much energy. Putting your own preferences first is not selfish. It is being a good parent.

Yeah, that's so hard to remember. I'm sure you get a lot of tears.

Oh yeah. This is not the type of job you do if you are uncomfortable with other people's emotions. Or if you're uncomfortable with nudity. There are a lot of topless crying moments in my work.

I mean, that's postpartum. I don't know if postpartum is better summed up other than topless and crying.

We better end on that note. If you’re topless and crying out there, you got this!

Thank you Krystal.

Foreword by Keeley

Topless and Crying