Latch On: The Blog

Image courtesy of Doula Barcelona When a mother finds out she’s carrying twins, or discovers she’s pregnant while still nursing her toddler, the question that arrives almost immediately is the same one: will there be enough for my baby? Over 35 years ago, my mother was categorically told, "No," and not to even try to nurse my younger sisters. It’s a reasonable fear and it’s one that gets very little honest answering, partly because the research on feeding more than one child

Skipping meals as a new mum is not a willpower problem. Typically it's systemic and it causes a hormonal cascade. Here's what happens in your body and how to put a safety net under the hard days. “I forgot to eat breakfast again.” I thought that on repeat for the first few years of my son’s life. The same small realisation typically arrived at around 1pm in the afternoon, every afternoon, as I stood at the kettle with a baby on my hip and no memory of having eaten and feeling

Want to keep breastfeeding your toddler but not on demand? Nursing manners let you set gentle breastfeeding boundaries around biting, twiddling and nursing in public, without weaning. I was standing in a supermarket queue when my son decided he'd waited quite long enough. He didn't ask, because he'd never needed to. He simply reached up, took a fistful of my top and yanked it down, and I stood there in front of a queue of strangers with my bra on display and my face on fire.

Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and the question many postpartum mothers are quietly contemplating The GLP-1 medications have gone from a diabetes clinic to the centre of every conversation about weight and many postpartum mothers are being swept up in it like everyone else. So the question lands in my inbox more and more often, usually carefully, usually from a mother who has been made to feel her body is a problem to be solved. "Is it safe to take one of these while I'm breastfee

Postpartum depletion is real, measurable and far more common than anyone admits. Here is why so many breastfeeding mums feel completely empty, and what genuinely helps. “I feel like a shell of myself.” The concern in my fiance’s eyes when I finally said those words out loud, was real. Our first baby was nine months old at the time and nursing hourly through the night. I was running on cold toast eaten standing over a sink full of dirty dishes and coffee I’d reheated three tim

I write this post with love and a special nod to the mother who is beyond exhausted by frequent night wakes and wondering - if I stop breastfeeding overnight. will we all get more sleep? My Experience This question used to plague me as a first time mother. I felt surrounded by the rhetoric that if I: "Just switched to formula..." "Introduced solids early..." Or "Just stopped breastfeeding..." Then my son would magically sleep through the night. You can imagine my disappointme

Barely a week passes without a mother asking me about this, usually quietly, often half braced for an answer that will make her feel guilty for even asking. So I want to give you the version I wish more women were handed. Not a lecture - and not a wagging finger. The version that respects your intelligence, tells you where the science is solid and where it quietly runs out, then trusts you to decide for yourself. The question you actually came here with The fear is simple. If

There’s a phrase you might have heard if you’ve spent any time in the world of infant feeding: Breast is best for allergies. It gets repeated in antenatal classes, in baby groups and in well-meaning comments from relatives. And like a lot of things that get repeated often enough, it’s quietly hardened into something that feels like settled fact. It isn’t settled though. Not in the way people can imply. I want to walk you through what the research genuinely shows, because I th

That sentence used to be the truest thing about me. I never said it out loud. I didn’t need to. It lived in every choice I made for over a decade. I was 27 when I started taking prenatals for the first time. We had just begun trying for our first baby and in the space of one positive pregnancy test, my entire relationship with my own body changed. Suddenly I cared about what I was eating. Suddenly I cared whether I was getting enough iron, enough folate, enough sleep. Suddenl

If your period hasn’t come back since having your baby, you’re probably wondering why? Or perhaps if it came back sooner than you expected - maybe just weeks postpartum - you might be frustrated, confused, or even a little angry. Both of those experiences land in my inbox regularly. Both deserve a proper answer. So let’s talk about what’s actually happening - and what the evidence does and doesn’t tell us. What breastfeeding actually does to your hormones To make sense of thi

I remember ticking the checklist for postpartum depression and not coming up with much. I still had motivation and there were lots of things I was enjoying about being a mother, so I thought I was fine… I definitely wasn't. I was completely obsessive about my son’s weight, what he was eating, how much sleep he was getting, nap times, wake windows and every single detail of his daily routine. Probably because the impact on me was so profound - if he didn’t nap well in the dayt

No-one tells you how much of your own health gets parked when you’re breastfeeding. With my first beautiful rainbow baby boy I thought I was doing everything right. He was thriving & I was so grateful to be able to breastfeed him. Yes, I was exhausted, but isn’t every new mother? I didn't know then that it wasn’t ‘just’ exhaustion. I was lightheaded more often than I admitted out loud. My nails were so brittle that they peeled when I wore closed shoes. I couldn’t sleep even

I share this post because I get asked about breastfeeding and weight loss all the time, not because I believe any lactating mother should be dieting or trying to lose weight. I personally did not weigh myself for at least a year postpartum, because I did not have the time, energy, or desire to track my weight. My weight fluctuated throughout my breastfeeding journey, as did my energy levels - and my stress levels. The relationship between breastfeeding and weight is a complex

I just read the New York Times opinion piece arguing that exclusive breastfeeding and equal parenting are incompatible, that choosing to breastfeed means choosing an “infuriatingly lopsided dynamic,” and that formula is the path to liberation. At first I was seething. Now, I'm mostly disappointed. I have so much compassion for the author. I truly do. Emergency surgery with a 3-month-old, worrying about your older child, the exhaustion of early motherhood, the resentment when

This post isn’t about bashing breastfeeding. I write this as a fierce advocate of breastfeeding beyond infancy and as a mother who sings and shouts about the benefits of breastfeeding for mothers and their children alike. But what the conversation is often missing is the hidden cost of lactating in a world which doesn’t recognize just how much you are giving. 365 days a year. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Even when your baby’s not literally latched onto you, your body is mak

I grew up in the nineties and we'd wake up to a literal mountain of plastic toys on Christmas Day. Neither of my parents ever had much as children, growing up and honestly? The delight on their faces - from being able to give us so much - was palpable too. Fast forward 35 years to when my son was a toddler, I read that 8 was the ideal number of toys to have. I strived for that - a neat little box of carefully selected items. Then his 3rd birthday arrived. After lockdown. Over

A reflection on where The Breastfeeding Mentor began - and what it’s grown into I think the story of The Breastfeeding Mentor starts...

I share this blog post in response to the hundreds of comments that I got on a now deleted post in which I shared a sleep training study...

There’s a persistent myth in some cultures: that women - and mothers in particular - are somehow less capable than men. Throw...

“This field - what’s it got to do with your brain?”: Understanding the Weaning Process There’s a viral reel going around. A girl runs...