Allow me to Reintroduce Myself

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Hi, I’m Danielle Facey, also known as The Breastfeeding Mentor and author of The Breastfeeding Survival Guide. I’m a Breastfeeding Counsellor, weaning specialist, writer, former teacher and mother to one wild and wonderful little boy and another little bundle due in autumn 2026. I hold a master’s degree in Psychology and I’ve built a community around one central truth: you don’t have to do this alone.

But (trigger warning) this work didn’t begin with expertise. It began with loss.

In 2014, I miscarried my first baby at exactly 12 weeks. I’ll never forget that night - the sterile hospital lights, the silence, the unbearable ache of going home with empty arms. That loss ended my pregnancy and triggered the collapse of my already-crumbling marriage. I was living in Dubai, thousands of miles from home and I felt like I was falling apart in slow motion. The grief was bottomless.

Eventually, desperate for relief, I enrolled in a yoga and meditation course in the foothills of the Himalayas. I didn’t go to be healed - I went to survive - but something shifted in me whilst I was there. In the stillness, I started to remember myself. I left India with a new sense of direction and within months I had left my role in teaching, returned to the UK and began studying once more.

It was during that time that I reconnected with the love of my life - a dear friend who had always truly seen me. By the end of 2018, we were engaged and expecting our son.

Pregnancy brought its own challenges: relentless nausea, exhaustion and a scare that left me fainting in the street, but it was mostly smooth. Birth, however, was anything but. After 78 hours of induced labour and an emergency c-section, our boy arrived in a baptism of fire and unable to latch. For the first few days, he was syringe-fed my colostrum by a rotation of midwives and my devoted fiancé. Miraculously, on the third night, at around 3 a.m., he latched onto me for the first time… and from that moment, he barely let go for almost 4 years!

Breastfeeding didn’t come easy. It wasn’t clinical problems though, it was the emotional weight. The never-ending nights. The touched-out days. The worry that I wasn’t doing it right. Why wouldn’t he sleep in a cot? Why did he want to nurse constantly? Would I ever have my body or my freedom back?

I was finally a mother, but I didn’t know how to be me, anymore.

Returning to work gave me a glimpse of myself again - and a fresh layer of guilt. I was working 70+ hour weeks in a boarding school, breastfeeding before dawn and after dusk, surviving on 3 to 5 hours of sleep. I was wore lipstick and extra concealer to hide the cracks, but I was quietly, completely burning out.

Then, one day in March 2020, I collapsed in a supermarket as I attempted to do the weekly food shop. My body had had enough. That collapse marked the start of a new kind of self-care - not the glossy, Instagram kind, but an infinitely braver, boundary-setting, soul-deep version.

In 2021, I left my job to work full-time as The Breastfeeding Mentor. I wanted to support other mothers in a way I’d never been supported. I wanted to tell the truth about how hard it can be: the beautiful, the messy and everything in between. I wanted to be the voice in the dark that I had so desperately needed.

What I didn’t say out loud at the time was that I hoped to reach the World Health Organization’s recommended two-year milestone. We did. And then some.

As I write this, our breastfeeding journey has officially ended after three years and nine months to the day. It ended quietly, much more naturally than it began: with one absent-minded, half-asleep feed in the middle of the night. It was Valentine’s night. A full-circle moment I didn’t even realise was the end until it was.

Since then, I’ve supported thousands of mothers through my work, helping them stop breastfeeding gently, return to work confidently and care for themselves fiercely. I’ve learned that weaning isn’t just about stopping. It’s about reclaiming. About honouring everything you’ve given and everything you still need.

I now offer:

• 1-2-1 private support for mothers ready to stop or feeling stuck

• A step-by-step weaning course filled with practical tools and emotional grounding

• A growing library of resources to meet you wherever you are in your nursing or pumping journey

For evidence-based, heart-led support in all things nursing, pumping and beyond, my Penguin debut, 'The Breastfeeding Survival Guide,' is available to order, here and at all good book stores: https://www.thebreastfeedingmentor.com/book

However long you breastfeed - however it begins, and however it ends - I hope more than anything that you feel informed, supported and never alone.

With love,

Danielle

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