Candice James IBCLC

Candice James IBCLC IBCLC & Mama hoping to help you feel grounded, empowered and inspired in your postpartum journey🌻AKA your baby feedin’ bestie! 🥰

08/24/2026

Hello ☺️

08/24/2026

The Recipe for Back to Work Success:

✅ Great fitting fl**ge
✅ Great Pump
✅ Great PLAN and strategy created along with your IBCLC preferably a week or 2 before you actually start work
✅ Ongoing support via text message your first weeks back a work to assess & adjust anything in the moment if needed until you fond your sweet spot

Returning to work & pumping is not an automatic milk supply reducer.

In fact, it may just INCREASE your supply queen! Visualize THAT happening not the worst 🥰

You GOT THIS. Yes you CAN PUMP AT WORK if you want lets gooooo 🦋🦋🦋

07/30/2026

Sometimes feeding on demand can feel overwhelming. ❤️

The unknown of when this sweet little b***y magnet is going to want to eat again can definitely bring some anxiety… that’s the real real. 😅

So here’s a little mindset hack that helped me…

✨ Cluster feed your baby first. ✨

Hear me out…

If you’re about to make dinner, jump in the shower, leave the house, or finally sit down to eat your own meal… offer the breast FIRST.

Not because you’re putting your baby on a schedule.
Not because you’re trying to stop cluster feeding.

Simply because babies are almost always down for a little snacky poo 🍔

Will it work every time? Probably absolutely not. 😅

But sometimes it shifts a cluster feed to a moment where you’re both already relaxing instead of the exact second you sit down or close the bathroom door. 🤣

Remember, cluster feeding is NORMAL. Snack feeds are NORMAL. Different-sized feeds are NORMAL. This is the biological norm for exclusively breastfed babies, and following their cues is one of the best ways to protect both your milk supply and your baby’s growth. 💜

So instead of thinking,
“My baby is definitely going to want to eat the second I start doing something…”

Try thinking,
“I’m going to offer the breast now while we’re both chilling.”

You can’t control when your baby wants to eat… but sometimes you can get a little head start. 😉

Tell me… does your baby have spidey senses too? 🕷️😂 And what do you think of this approach?

Important- babies with reflux, high volume spit ups, any feeding issues, discomforts you are working on etc this may not be the best idea for your dyad but no harm in giving it a try and observing 👀

07/28/2026

Babies are just out here in these streets filling up their SNUGGLE CUPS ☕️❤️

At least that is my way of thinking of it, and it really helps!

Try not to worry that if you hold a baby too much during the day, they will expect it overnight. I’ve actually found the opposite of the babies in my care! We have snuggle contact nap marathons and I swear by bedtime they are like sheesh thank GOODNESS this lady put me down I need some space 🤪

You know that I am all about finding the balance, of course if contact napping is stealing your own joy and affecting your own postpartum experience I feel like there’s always ways to help strategize and find a gentle solution, but for many of my clients this little mind switch of awww they just wanna snuggle 🥹 helps 96.7% of the time 🤷🏽‍♀️

Bottom line: we actually are most like kangaroos in a sense that we really should have a pouch for these little love muffins they love to be held. Remember they lived a lifetime in your tummy way before they came out here and it’s what they’re used to 🧸

And of COURSE, I know you need your nap and rest and free arms and body moments too. No pressure.. just openness to understanding babies and knowing if you go to put your baby down and they wake up or refuse being put down, you arent doing any thing wrong! (and this might be the biggest Takeaway of this post that I want you to know if your baby does this it’s not you you are not doing anything wrong) its just babies doing baby things ❤️

What do you think about this? Does it help?

Mom & Dad. 💙 Our beautiful niece got married last night 🥰
07/18/2026

Mom & Dad. 💙

Our beautiful niece got married last night 🥰

HELLO 3am SNUGGLES 🌙🥰I know they can be exhausting, but sometimes it helps to understand the science behind their impor...
07/15/2026

HELLO 3am SNUGGLES 🌙🥰

I know they can be exhausting, but sometimes it helps to understand the science behind their importance.

Prolactin, the hormone that tells your body to keep making milk, isn’t flat all day. It follows a circadian rhythm and peaks in the early hours of the morning, roughly 1–5am. That means a night feed triggers a bigger prolactin surge than the same feed at noon would!

So when your baby wants to nurse at 3am, that’s not your supply failing, or your baby being tough, it’s your body’s own clock working exactly as designed.

Skipping those night feeds consistently is what tends to bring supply down over time, UNLESS baby is doing it on their own with no outside interventions.

Night feeds are natures way of boosting your milk supply 🥰

07/15/2026

Can I relieve some stress from your plate a bit??

Each day, toss the milk you collected in the fridge and forget about it.

No marking the bottle, no keeping a file open in your brain about what day you put it in there, just put it in there and forget it 💫

Here is what you do:

Choose 2 days a week that you want to remember to be your “Milk Bagging Days” and set your phone alarm for repeating weekly ✅

So say every Monday & Thursday are your milk bagging days. Wayyy easier to keep track off.

Then boom, sometime on those days, bag it all up, date it that day and put it in the freezer.

And guess what, if you forgot it was Thursday and you remembered on Friday, its okay queen, bag it up and put it in the freezer.

And now you may be thinking, WAIT- what if it’s milk that I pumped on Monday and I’m bagging it up on Thursday don’t I need to date it Monday?!! 😵‍💫

Its not that serious love ❤️

In the grand scheme of things when you ultimately pull that milk out of the freezer to use it, it’s not going to matter if it was pumped on a Monday or Thursday. The exact date doesn’t really matter if it’s all in the same week, it’s all good 💪🏽

07/15/2026

Calculate the total number of hours you will be out and multiply that by 1.25.

Ex. gone from 8am-6pm 10 hours, 10x1.25‎ = 12.5

The night before, pull out the ounces you will need from the freezer and put into fridge. It will gently defrost here over night.

In the morning, pour into bottles so that it is easy for caregiver to grab and go!

Important notes:

The 1.25 calculation is average. Your baby may drink less or more, so it is important to know that when you get started with your back to work plan, there will be a learning curve to find the sweet spot to exactly how much your baby likes to drink and when.

The most important thing is that when you are gone, you are somehow pumping the same amount of ounces that they drink to keep things equal and protected.

It is very important that your caregiver knows the importance of feeding baby in an organized way to prevent over feeding. I do have sessions with caregivers all of the time, ask your IBCLC for a session with your caregiver for a protective plan!

When pulling milk out of the freezer, it’s not always going to be the exact amount of ounces that you may need and that’s totally OK!

Ex. Oh no! The amount my milk is frozen means Im pulling out 15 ounces but I only may need 13!

No worries, milk is good for at least 24 hours from the moment it is thawed (and I mean FULLY thawed down to the last nice crystal before the “countdown” begins) in the fridge which means if you have a bit of a surplus, they can drink in the morning of the following day! OR if it is just a tiny surplus, they can have a little snacky poo of this at some point during the day. No milk tossed on my watch 🥰

You may say what’s the point of pulling out of the freezer when I’m pumping fresh milk the day of and I could just use that the next day. You could do this, but I always recommend using your oldest milk and replenishing your freezer with the newest milk so that your freezer stash will last longer.

I hope this helps! I am all about systems and creating a plan tailored to my clients exact needs and when I tell you options are endless, I mean it!

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