The Infant Feeding Coach, Jersey

28/04/2026

🌸Bloom🌸 is growing!!

✨Amazing line-ups, new co-hosts joining, beautiful locations, events for mums, parents and babies… and even toddlers!✨

💻 PLUS new benefits for anyone who joins a course.

🥳 All coming your way very soon!

27/04/2026

17/04/2026

‼️Content warning: Feeding Trauma, Anxiety and PTSD‼️

My Feeding Trauma Story: PART 2

💔 My response to our feeding trauma took many forms, so I think it’s really important to raise awareness about this so that other mothers are better understood by others, but also by themselves.

🫂 Some of these might be unexpected, but they all link back to the feeding trauma, so be gentle if you or someone you know has strong feelings about things that might be totally normal to you. This is not to judge anyone who does these things, like bottle feeding for example, it’s just to outline what I was unable to tolerate because I was traumatised.

⚠️ Some examples of my triggers:

• Anyone holding my baby, especially if they didn’t give her back as soon as I asked.

• Any comments undermining or challenging breastfeeding e.g. “are you sure your milk is enough for her?”, “if you have her formula she’d sleep better” etc etc

• The thought of giving her a bottle or a dummy.

• When we started weaning, anyone standing over her when offering her food or anybody spoon feeding her.

• Babies crying - my own, or any baby.

• Any perceived “danger” - her being too hot, too cold, getting sick, germs (this is classic hyper-vigilance often seen with PTSD).

• Separation from her. At all. For any length of time. (I couldn’t even drive to the petrol station and back.)

• My let down (the feeling when your milk comes down ready for a feed) when we weren’t together.

🤯 When I write it all down, no wonder I was struggling so much. And at the time, there was no specialist perinatal mental health support available on the NHS here.

❤️‍🩹 In Part 3 I will talk about the treatment, support and strategies that have helped me on my ongoing journey to recovery.

17/04/2026

If you haven’t seen the conversation about “Ugly Duckling Syndrome” and also watched the responses from women like and then prepare yourself for the outrage!

Despite everything we are capable of 👆🏻women are STILL being reduced to whichever box a man thinks we belong in: “Pretty”, “Ugly”, “Funny”, “Boring”… on national television.

I for one am forever changed. Matrescence (the journey of transformation we go through when we become a mother) has meant I have emerged with total self-respect and am in awe of myself and every other woman and mother. I will never again reduce myself to basic aesthetics and whether I look (or behave) how our society expects me to.

I want my daughter to know the absolute power she has within her, not ever feeling like she needs validation from misogynistic constructs. I never want her or my son to hear me talk badly about myself, see me trying to squeeze into smaller clothes or watch me dieting.

We can only continue to be reduced into words and terms like these if we allow it.
What do we want our daughters and sons listening to?
Blatant misogyny on a “family” TV show isn’t it.

15/04/2026

🙏🏻 There are a lot of new faces this week, after I shared my feeding trauma story, so I thought I’d reintroduce myself!

❤️‍🩹 Firstly, thank you to everyone who has shared and validated my experience! It means the world and I was terrified to share the footage of my facial spasm 😭

🤱🏻 I’m Nicola, a qualified Breastfeeding Counsellor & Infant Feeding Coach. I’ve supported hundreds of women and families since completing my training, and it is work that lights up my soul!

💜 I’m a Champion, committed to improving outcomes for women and babies, in birth, feeding and by reducing and treating trauma.

🇵🇹 I’m married to André, who is Portuguese, from the beautiful island of Madeira.

🇯🇪 We live in Jersey, in the Channel Islands, between France 🇫🇷 and the UK 🇬🇧 (the island that New Jersey in the US 🇺🇸 is named after!)

🩷💙 We are incredibly lucky to have 2 beautiful children, our daughter who is 3, and our son who is nearly 1! We are raising them bilingual and with a mash-up of both our cultures 🤣

🫂 I’m trying to raise awareness of feeding traumas like mine, so that women and parents suffering, or who have suffered in the past, can feel validated and can seek the support they need.

🤰🏾 We talk about birth trauma much more now thankfully, but not feeding trauma. And with scary statistics around the safety of mothers when birthing in hospitals, it’s so important to make sure that all of our traumas are part of the dialogue around pregnancy, birth and postpartum care.

🧠 We need to be able to name what has happened to us and have the right support. Not all therapy is appropriate for these kinds of traumas, which I will discuss in Part 2.

12/04/2026

‼️Content warning: Birth and Feeding Trauma‼️

🤱🏻 I’ve been waiting a long time (3.5 years) to share the true extent of my feeding trauma and I’ve been terrified to share the pictures of my facial spasm, which was brought on by PTSD and anxiety.

🩷 But after having so many lovely messages from you all after my episode, I thought it was time to share my story. I hope it validates any strong feelings you’ve had about feeding your baby - whether that be breast, bottle, pumping or a combination.

💔 Thankfully, we now talk more openly about birth trauma, but feeding trauma is still rarely discussed or validated.

‼️ FEEDING TRAUMA IS REAL - so many women I support are suffering with it and we deserve to feel understood. If anything proves how significant our feelings around feeding are, look at how my mental distress presented itself physically until I put boundaries in place to honour my feeding journey with my daughter.

🫂 I offer debriefs for anyone who has experienced feeding trauma, so please reach out if you think it might help you.

❤️‍🩹 I will share more on how I recovered and who helped me in Part 2

There are very few people speaking out about feeding trauma, but and .jenna.psychologist are helping to normalise this.

07/04/2026

Such an informative session from new Dad Nathan from - we even got to see his wife and newborn baby daughter!

Great discussions and some new faces, which was just lovely!

I will miss seeing these 🌸Bloom🌸 girls every Tuesday!

03/04/2026

😴 Lots of harmful stuff out their about bad habits and trying to breastfeed a baby until they are “drowsy but awake” - if you work out how to do this let me know 🤷🏻‍♀️

💤 There is a biological reason why it’s pretty much impossible - because babies are designed to fall asleep at the breast!

🤰🏽 At the end of pregnancy (from about 32 weeks), melatonin levels rise in the mother and her body transfers this to her baby via the placenta.

This could present a link between pre-term babies and a disrupted circadian rhythm (this would explain why my premature daughter hardly slept at night🫠 - plus I held her and fed her in the day, and tried to put her down at night!)

ALSO, who knew that melatonin is not just for sleep?!

1. It works to remove pollutants & toxins and it is anti-inflammatory.

2. Melatonin gives increased immunological protection by boosting white blood cell activity.

3. It protects white blood cell survival in colostrum, showing a possible importance when dealing with infections.

HOW AMAZING! Can you tell I’ve been immersed in breastfeeding training this week?! 🤓

02/04/2026

Obsessed with my pictures from the 🌸Bloom🌸 session with on Tuesday!

31/03/2026

Thank you so much to for this morning’s mum & baby photoshoot, almost at the end of this 🌸Bloom🌸 course! 🥹

I’ve loved getting to know these beautiful mums & babies over the past 6 weeks and I can’t wait to see these photos when they are ready!! 😊

30/03/2026

It’s almost the end of another 🌸Bloom🌸 course, which means it’s Mum & Baby photoshoot time!!

📷 Tomorrow we’ve got creating some magic for us! I can’t wait! ✨