Welcome

If you've ever searched "is my baby eating enough" at 3 a.m. and found five confident answers that all contradict each other, you're in the right place. This course exists because lactation advice is famously inconsistent — between books, between websites, sometimes between two nurses on the same hospital floor. That's not because feeding babies is a mystery. It's because good research rarely gets translated into plain language for the people who actually need it.

That's the job of this course.

Who this is for

This course is for you if you're pregnant or newly postpartum and want to understand how feeding actually works before someone hands you a strong opinion about it. It's also for you if you're weeks or months in, things aren't going the way you expected, and you want real information instead of reassurance or pressure.

You don't need any background in science. You do need to be treated like an intelligent adult, and that's how this course is written.

What this course is — and isn't

This is research-backed education about lactation: how milk production works, what typical newborn behavior looks like, what the evidence says about common problems, and what your realistic options are at each decision point. The goal is simple — you understand your body and your baby well enough to feed on your own terms.

Two things it is not:

  • It's not medical advice. Nothing here replaces your pediatrician, midwife, or a lactation consultant who can actually examine you and your baby. Think of this course as the background knowledge that makes those conversations more productive.
  • It's not a pressure campaign. You may have heard "breast is best." Around here, informed is best. Nursing, pumping, combo-feeding, and formula are all on the table, and this course supports whichever combination works for your body, your baby, and your life.

How to use it

The course is built for someone with a newborn and roughly ninety seconds of free time at a stretch:

  • Short lessons. Each one covers a single topic and takes a few minutes. Read them in order or jump to what you need tonight.
  • Audio versions. Every lesson can be listened to instead of read — useful when your hands are full, which they will be.
  • Progress tracking. The course remembers where you left off, so you don't have to.
  • Ask Sarah. If a lesson raises a question it doesn't answer, use the Ask Sarah feature to send it in. Questions like yours are how this course keeps getting better.

There's no schedule and no falling behind. Some parents read everything before the birth; many find it works just as well as a reference they open when a specific question comes up.

The promise

Every lesson in this course does two things: it shows you what the evidence actually says, and it tells you what to do with that information in real life. Where the research is strong, you'll hear that. Where it's thin or genuinely mixed — and in lactation science, it sometimes is — you'll hear that too, along with how parents reasonably navigate the uncertainty.

What you won't find is guilt, scare tactics, or a hidden agenda about how you should feed your baby. You're the one holding this baby at 3 a.m. You get the good information, and you make the calls.

Ready? The next lesson starts with the thing everyone worries about first: how milk production actually works.

Course outline

How Milk Works

The First Days and Weeks

  • 🔒 A Skills-Based Approach
  • 🔒 Colostrum
  • 🔒 The First Latch
  • 🔒 Is Baby Getting Enough?
  • 🔒 Cluster Feeding and Normal Newborn Behavior
  • When to Get Help

Establishing & Regulating Supply

  • 🔒 The First Six Weeks
  • 🔒 Pumping Basics
  • 🔒 Exclusive Pumping
  • 🔒 Low Supply: Real vs. Perceived
  • 🔒 Increasing Supply: What Works, What Doesn't
  • 🔒 Oversupply and Engorgement

Common Challenges

  • 🔒 Pain and Latch Trouble
  • 🔒 Clogged Ducts and Mastitis
  • 🔒 Tongue Ties: What the Evidence Says
  • 🔒 Nursing Strikes, Teething, and Biting
  • 🔒 D-MER and Nursing Aversion

Bottles, Formula, and Milk Storage

  • 🔒 Introducing a Bottle
  • 🔒 Combo Feeding Without Guilt
  • 🔒 Safe Formula Preparation
  • 🔒 Milk Storage

Taking Care of You

  • 🔒 Medications and Milk
  • 🔒 Diet, Alcohol, and Caffeine
  • 🔒 Sleep and Night Feeds
  • 🔒 Your Mind: Postpartum Mental Health
  • 🔒 The Partner's Role
  • 🔒 The Boob Flu (Mastitis)

Special Situations

  • 🔒 Premature and NICU Babies
  • 🔒 Nursing When You're Sick
  • 🔒 Relactation and Induced Lactation

The Long Game

  • 🔒 Returning to Work
  • 🔒 Starting Solids
  • 🔒 Weaning on Your Terms