Part 2 - Your Lactation Training Philosophy

The second in a 12-part series built just for you!

This week we will define your philosophy on lactation training and create a plan for the education you intend to pursue.

---

This isn’t just another blog about breastfeeding.

This Substack is built to strengthen the connections between the practice of lactation support and the rest of the universe of health and well-being.

More than twenty years of lactation care in multiple settings and from multiple vantage points have given me some insights, which I share here, along with ideas, inspiration, and resources designed to help you grow in your lactation career.

Feelings of isolation, frustration, and a sense of working uphill are all too common in our space.

Join me here for the boost you need to keep going - the Notes app on my phone is bursting with ideas to share with you and ways that we can work together to share what is important about breastfeeding, human milk, and the practice of lactation care.

Welcome to Week 2 of the Thriving Lactation Professional series!

This 12-week series has been created to bring you a resource for organizing your purpose, mission, and intentions into a comprehensive and actionable plan for truly thriving as a lactation professional.

You’ll find ideas and prompts here to get you thinking and working toward a more straightforward definition and plan for yourself.

Paid members also get access to download exercises to further their introspection and growth - plus get a bonus private podcast episode that walks you through the exercises with examples and stories.

(Not a paid subscriber? That’s fine; you can join easily by clicking this button, and there’s no minimum subscription time, plus you’ll have access to everything in the archive.)

Last week we used a Planner/Journal workbook to look back into your past while encouraging you to envision the future you want in your lactation career.

This week we will define your philosophy on lactation training and create a plan for the education you intend to pursue.

Many lactation professionals at every stage of their careers express that they are disorganized about tracking their continuing education.

Every time they need to pull all their documentation together, they find that they don’t have a good system for organizing it, and because they did not pursue education in an intentional way, they have gaps in their knowledge or skills.

Sometimes they find that though they may have acquired enough hours of continuing education in lactation, they have too much overlap in topics and subjects and end up having to spend more money and more time creating the balance that is required.

In this exercise to Define Your Lactation Training Philosophy, you will explore your own opinions and values around what lactation education is supposed to be, think back on the learning experiences you’ve had, state your intentions for the coming year, and decide how to get organized.

Completing the exercises in this workbook is a way of staying accountable to yourself. You are responsible for your continuing education, and it can be hard to keep focused on it when it unfolds over a period of months and years.

This workbook will allow you to define your philosophy so that you can more easily make choices when planning your lactation education and to set out your personal goals in pursuing continuing education as a lactation professional.

*Individuals who are due to re-certify as IBCLCs this year in 2025 can access additional resources and guidance from GOLD Learning right here, including a webinar that explains the entire process. Of course, you should always refer directly back to the IBCLC Commission for your initial and re-certification needs.

Download the exercises here in this workbook and get started when you’ve got a few minutes. You may want to read the prompts and think about them while doing other activities before you even write anything down.

*Paid Subscribers: Scroll down to Listen to the audio companion to get an even more rich experience as you work through the exercises.

It’s an exercise, and there are no “right” answers.

This is for you, so make it work for you.

Please share if you feel inclined - I’d love to know how these exercises help get your mind moving toward the future!

You can always Hit Reply to these emails right in your email inbox.

Until next time, thank you for the work you do every day for babies and their families.

P.S. I hope you’ll share this with someone else who can use it!

Other ways to learn with me:

• A book - Evolving the Modern Breastfeeding Experience: Holistic Lactation Care in the First 100 Hours, which you can buy here.

• A course - Holistic Lactation Care in the First 100 Hours: A Masterclass in Early Lactation Care, which you can purchase here.

• A comprehensive course on Paperless Lactation - Beyond Lactation: Advanced Breast Health Insights for Lactation Professionals, which you can purchase here.

• A private podcast feed about Early Lactation Care - you can sign up for free here.

• All episodes of the Evolve Lactation Podcast - you can listen here.

• Hundreds of articles right here on Substack - you can look at everything here. - Some of these have free downloads inside them, too!