TLC Theresa Lactation Consultant

16/02/2026

"Women, and especially mothers, are often framed as anxious, emotional, uninformed, or easily misled when they want to respond to their babies and keep them close at night. When mothers want to do the most natural thing in the world, which is to respond to their babies and keep them close, they are often infantilized and framed as silly, uninformed, or as women who are victimizing themselves. In that kind of framing, mothers who practice responsive caregiving at night can end up being perceived as overly emotional or ignorant, even when what they’re doing is a very deliberate and biologically normal way of caring for an infant.

"When decisions are framed this way, mothers begin doubting themselves and their instincts, looking to 'experts' to tell them how to parent. Instead of asking whether an approach actually fits their baby, they wonder if they’re being irrational, weak, or 'too attached.'

"So, no, Emily, it’s not that we are scared of sleep training. It’s that we know our babies and have chosen to lean into our intuition that tells us to respond to them. It’s because responsiveness creates order and peace in our homes, where sleep training would feel chaotic and stressful. That choice is usually made with education, wisdom, reason, and discernment."

Emily Oster recently published an article called “Why Is Everyone Afraid of Sleep Training?” The intention of the piece is pretty clear: to reassure parents that sleep training is supported by evidence, and that concerns about harm are largely unfounded and generally "fear mongering". While some...

15/02/2026

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12/02/2026

If you can’t make it to an in-person meeting, check out this virtual event! 💚💚💚

Starting at 9.30 today (Friday 13th)

Open to all pregnant, breastfeeding, expressing, and mixed feeding mothers, please join us for a Zoom gathering. Meet (virtually) other mums, share your breastfeeding experiences, and have your questions answered. Please click on the link to register for this online event, and you will be emailed directions for how to join on the day.

12/02/2026

Bedsharing is brain food 💝

Research tells us that babies who co-sleep in infancy, especially in those early years can receive around 13,000 extra hours of touch.

Thirteen thousand.

Because when you keep your baby close, day and night, they’re getting 10 to 12 extra hours a day of your skin, your warmth, your presence.

That’s not spoiling.
That’s wiring.

Touch is brain food.
It releases oxytocin and serotonin.
It lowers cortisol.

It teaches your baby’s body how to feel safe.
How to come back to calm.

We actually have studies showing that
co-sleeping babies have lower stress reactivity meaning their little bodies bounce back from stress faster.

More hours of touch by age three.

That’s not dependence.
That’s co-regulation.
That’s safety being built from the inside out.
That’s wiring.

So the next time you’re contact napping, bed sharing, or doing whatever gets you both some rest and someone tells you you’re creating bad habits remember this,

You’re not creating a clingy baby.
You’re creating a resilient one 🖤

12/02/2026

Bottle feeding is not “easier” for babies.

(Caveat: it is still true that babies can develop bottle preference.)

Let’s put to rest for good the false assumptions that bottle-feeding is “easier” for preemies than breastfeeding. Acording to this 2026 RCT, at their first feeding by mouth, preemies breastfed had measurably better oxygen levels and heart rates compared with those whose first oral feed was by bottle. The breastfed preemies even took more milk! Please share these findings far and wide! https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41318959/

11/02/2026

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04/02/2026

Yes, it’s safe. No need to heat up your expressed breastmilk before feeding.

Does the temperature of expressed milk fed to a newborn matter? Can it be warm, room temperpature, or even cold? All are okay, according to this 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis. it found milk’s temperature had no clinically significant effect on babies’ body temperature, heart rate, or oxygen level. Want to know more? Free download here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/15568253251413231

04/02/2026

All of this! 👏👏👏

“Partnership isn't built from a bottle. It's built from shared responsibility, mutual competence, and two adults who can run the day without being managed. Changing the milk source doesn't change the mental load.
Changing the ownership does.”

01/02/2026

This!

31/01/2026

Delete the app. Ignore the clock 💟💟💟

I see so much pressure on parents to feed by the clock, by volumes, or by apps that promise certainty. But babies don’t work like spreadsheets.

Babies are variable. Their cues change, their needs shift, and what works one day may not work the next. When parents are supported to watch their baby instead of the numbers, I often see confidence begin to grow.

Not because it becomes easy, but because the relationship starts to lead.

What helped you learn your baby’s hunger cues, or what still feels confusing about them?

31/01/2026

Not all languages have a word for “burping a baby”. Yes there is a word for the sound that people make. But not the specific actions a parent must do to elicit this sound.