EP60 | Best Gifts for Lactation Consultants

Annie: Well, hey there, Leah.

Leah: Hey, Annie, how are you doing today?

Annie: I am great because, in just a couple of weeks, we are having a deeper dive into clinical complexities with Kathy Watson Jenna, or I should say Katherine Watson Jenna BS IBCLC, esteemed author of Supporting Sucking Skills. My IBCLC when my first babies were born, babies were first born, 14 years ago. I actually looked up to see when it was that I saw her with my older baby and it's not quite our 14 year anniversary, but it's really close. That was kind of lovely to find out. In the email, I saw that she said, keep me posted. That's something that I say to my clients all the time and I got it from her.

Leah: Oh, how fun. Yeah, I'm so excited. I love her brain. I love her brain because she's got to be one of the smartest people that I have ever interacted with. I just love her brain and love her teaching style. What I'm super excited about, we know her so much as like this author, this researcher, but I've never really interacted with her and talked about her journey as a lactation consultant and her practice and how that's evolved and how she got into all these different things. I am so, so excited about that, to see this other side and to know kind of her journey because that's something I don't know about her. I just know her super smartness and all the amazing things she's done for the world of lactation and information she's taught me over the years. I mean, I've met her 10 years ago at a conference and interacted with her many times since then. She's been so just a pivotal teacher and in my life in the sense of like, I've learned things from her and then shifted how I was doing something. It's just awesome. So I'm so glad that she's gonna be on our deeper dive with us. It's gonna be so amazing.

Annie: It's going to be great. She's so generous and she's so kind. She's so, I mean smart doesn't even begin to describe it. I've gone with her with my clients where I'm like, I still don't know what's going on help me. Just watching her, I've experienced her care as a mom, but then also watching her care for the families that I'm working with, and how gentle and kind she is with these parents and these babies. I'm just so excited/ I liked it a little happy dance when she said she was available. If you want to register, if you've never been to a deeper dive before, it is a conversation that you get to be a part of. We cover a different topic each time. You can register and learn more at lactationbusinesscoaching.com, that will take us to a page where you can learn about our deeper dives. You can either sign up for one or you can become a member and get all of them plus our vault goes all the way back to January 2020 when we first started these, so lots of different ways to engage. Everyone gets the recording if you sign up in advance, so don't worry if you can't make the exact time. It's December 14th at 4pm Eastern Time and we hope that you can be there.

Leah: Definitely, definitely.

Annie: Leah, what's the topic for our episode today?

Leah: I'm so excited about this topic because we are talking about fun things for lactation consultants. It's coming close to the holiday season and you might be thinking about what do I want. So we're gonna talk about all the things that we have and love right now, both from like, fun boob stuff, to also some clinical tools that we're using and really loving right now. So I'm excited about this because I have so many fun things that I've gotten recently. What's something that you've gotten or have had for a long time that is just your fun, I can carry this around and it makes sense because I'm an IBCLC. I think a lot of our things like it regular people were walking around with them, it kind of be like, oh, that's interesting, but we're like IBCLC, we're loving all the boobs. What do you have? What's something that you've gotten?

Annie: Oh, gosh, I have so many things. I have earrings I actually have these beautiful gold plated earrings. My husband is obsessed with going on Etsy and finding random like one of a kind of things. So I've got the boob earrings are very large and if you don't look too closely, they just look like big gold circles, but actually, there's a little nipple on there and they're just beautiful. He's also found me a keychain holder that is basically, the top half of a woman's body. I mean, it's blue and enamel so it's not realistic looking. It's very artsy-looking keyholder so her arms are the keys, but then her boobs are right there. The best thing he found, which I don't carry around because it would get destroyed and it's too beautiful to get destroyed, an artist, and I'll have to find out for the show notes who the artist was that made these because it was not meant to be like an actual useful thing but more like a conceptual piece the artist came up with, it as a giant umbrella. When you open it up, it's a breast with a nipple and an areola. You would only see it from looking at it from above. It's huge. I would never take it outside in New York City. it is too beautiful to be opened. We were telling a friend about it and the friend was like, you got one of those umbrellas. I'm like, yeah, of course, I did, it's a breast. She's like, no, no, no, it's this like, artist thing, and I was like, oh, even better. Two things that I love breast and contemporary arts.

Leah: And a functional piece of contemporary art.

Annie: Functional but non-functional because I won't use it.

Leah: You're not gonna use it. I know.

Annie: What about you, Leah?

Leah: I've got to see a picture of that. Fun stuff I have that I really like I have these fun boob socks. They're so kind of like over the top because they're the nipples on them are like bright red. So when I wear them, it's so funny, the dads are the ones oftentimes that will notice them first. Eventually, they'll be staring at my feet for so long, I'm like, yes, their boobs. Then I always have this funny joke and I'm like, if your nipples look like this, please call me. It lightens up the consult and because I take my shoes off at everybody's house, it works out well because I'm like walking around. So it's always been a fun little conversation starter and lightens the mood and I love those socks. I wear them. I have four or five pairs. I wear them almost every day and they're fun. Then I also just recently on Etsy, Etsy is such a fun place to go in and dive deep into all the things that you can purchase, lactation wise, but my intern had this really cute hair scrunchie and I was like, Oh my gosh, that's such a cute hair scrunchie I've never seen one, it's thicker than normal ones. I was like, where did you get that? She said Etsy so I like totally went on and got it. The really nice thing about this is I have never been able to achieve the cute messy bun. This is the only thing that I can put around my hair that is like, oh actually, that's okay because my hair just like is so straight. It flies out of the messy bun like I will not be restrained. This one is really awesome. So it's very functional. I actually wear it, I'm like, well, you know, people can wear boobs all the time, right? It's fine not just to work, I'll wear it other places too. If you're looking that close at my head, you know, you're gonna see boobs and that's on you, not me, and I love it.

Annie: I would love to see the VSCO lactation consultant, like the VSCO girl, do you know about these? This is like, two years ago, there was like the big thing of you were the messy bun and you had the reusable straw and big oversized t-shirts or sweatshirts. One of the things was the messy bun so now I'm just picturing you as the lactation VSCO girl.

Leah: Definitely. Then I also really like on Lactation Hub they have a scrub top that's covered in boobs. The material on it, I just like super loving, especially here in Houston. It's you know, most of the time so hot and so it's like the perfect summer scrub top. The only issue with that one is, you know, like for work, people get it I'm walking around the clinic totally vied but then I'm like, Oh, hey, I need to run through the grocery store. And sometimes I'm like getting a lot of people staring at me, because it's literally like, the entire shirt is boobs, you know, and I love it because it's like all different kinds of boobs, you know, so it's not just like, this is the way boobs should look. It's like boobs in every form and fashion that you can possibly imagine. So, boobs and chest and all the ways I love it. So I love wearing it, but I do have to consider like, am I going anywhere else after because not that it's a problem, but it's just funny because I like Oh man, I'm really standing out and people are staring at me like why boobs all over me. And I want to have like a big sign on the back of me like I'm a lactation consultant, this is why but it doesn't matter if reasonable, like put the boots out there. It's fine.

Annie: I am dressed appropriately for my vocation. That's how I wear my tricky nipples pay my bills from Boobtees from Nichelle and Courtney. It's like, I am just shy enough that I'm like, I just don't know if I can pull this off. I love it though. those shirts are so soft.

Leah: I have that one too. I love their shirts so much. I teach a class quarterly called Breastfeeding First Responders and it's for doulas\ and people that are like the first responders like postpartum nurses and doulas and midwives, things like that. I wear that shirt because it's very appropriate for there, you know, and it always again, is like this great conversation starter, and everybody's laughing to start off. So I love Boobtees, I have almost every one of them. I have the Texas one and I have that one and I have the love in every drop. Is that what it says?

Annie: Yeah, that's the one yes,

Leah: Yes, I have that one. I have so many of those. I have totally bought every single one that they have, I think.

Annie: It's like I have so many of them but yet, I still don't have enough. I need to actually go back because some of them are, I picked certain colors. Now I'm like, I should have gotten different colors. I have one that I got it in pink, and I really like the pink in the picture. Then I was like, I think I might just not be able to pull off this pink outside the house but I want this to be an outside the house shirt. So then I'm like, oh, I know what I'll do, I'm gonna cut the neckline out like it's 1987. That was a terrible idea. I should not have made my own styling decisions around this shirt. So I need to rebuy that shirt, but I think I might go for a different color or maybe I will say you know what, who cares if anybody including me thinks I can pull off pink if I want to pull off pink. I'll wear pink.

Leah: 100%. I love you know, my business colors are purple and so I love that almost all their shirts, I can get in purple, you know, so almost all of them are purple mine and I have a couple of gray ones too. They actually work really well. I can wear them with my scrub pants and kind of like mix in the mix of what I wear to work every day. It's kind of fun to mix it up sometimes I love all the boob stuff. It's so fun and it just makes it fun to have these statements that we can put out there and promote our profession day in and day out even if we get some crazy looks. It's totally fine. It's totally fine.

Annie: I love it. I love it. There are other shirts that I've seen out there that I like to I mean, I'm a Boobtees loyalist but I also have the lactation consultants for Black Lives Matter t-shirt. I once bumped into my friend in the neighborhood who's a midwife and I was wearing that shirt at the farmers market of course as you would be wearing that shirt and she walked up to me she's like I almost wore my midwives for Black Lives Matter shirt today. I have it in the same color and I was like that would have been like,

Leah: You would have to take a picture.

Annie: I would have to take a picture, so on-brand for the two of us. I do like that shirt too. But I need to see more, I don't wear t-shirts enough because I think I just had something about like, do t-shirts look good on me. I don't know. I don't know what my hang-up was about t-shirts. But now that I'm wearing scrubs for work and I have been wearing the scrub tops since I got them embroidered with my name and my practice name on them. But I also like the idea of dressing it down with a t-shirt. That's fun too.

Leah: Yeah, I mix it like some days I just want to have a statement shirt so I'll wear one of my Boobtees with my scrub pants. I think they can look pretty sharp like sometimes I'll even like tuck it in, sometimes I'll leave it out it looks less professional, you know, maybe more casual, but then you can tuck it in, you can make it look really sharp. It looks just as cute as your nice shirt. Yeah, totally do that.

Annie: Okay, I'm gonna do it and I've also never tucked a shirt in a day in my life.

Leah: Embrace this shirt tucking, it's like the thing now right?

Annie: It is? I don't know.

Leah: People are even tucking sweaters in and I was like what is this. I had no idea. I'm so not in the fashion space. I have no idea what's going on in the fashion world I just wear what's mostly just what's comfortable is my fashion sense right now.

Annie: I have come around to the whole scrubs thing. I was an anti-scrub.

Leah: I remember when you were anti-scrub.

Annie: I was vocally anti-scrub and now I'm like where have you been all my life.

Leah: I just love it so much for not having to think about what I'm going to wear.

Annie: Yes and pockets.

Leah: Yes and so many pockets, I'll wear them once I'm home just to be able to carry stuff up and down the stairs more and have my phone in a comfortable place like 100% I need them.

Annie: That's a great gift idea because they can get expensive

Leah: They are and nice ones too, ones that like are gonna last.

Annie: Yeah, one brand I tried I really liked and then I realized the sizing just wasn't quite right for so I switched to another one that had some stretch. Now I'm like, okay, these are my scrubs, and I want more. I picked dark red for my scrubs, which is not a great color if you're a lactation consultant, because I'm like, I am walking around as like an abscessed breast, but it's my favorite color to wear. So I'm like it's fine.

Leah: I can see that looks good on you. Yeah, it's totally fine. I know I used to wear always purple and then we started to bring in black scrubs because I think they look really sharp. The material ones that I most recently got, they don't fade at all. So I can wash them in hot water, it doesn't matter. It's just this, I don't know, probably some terrible synthetic material, but it's this material that stays looking really sharp so I feel like no matter what, no matter how I feel that day, if my hair is in the messy bun, I still look really sharp in my nice black scrubs and they fit so good. They have this wonderful elastic high waist that like all things move and stretch with comfort. I'm all about the comfort, like totally. So we're gotten through all the fun stuff, I think because we also wanted to talk about some clinical tools that we've recently, or maybe not recently, have been utilizing. So is there anything from a clinical side that maybe you've used more recently?

Annie: Yeah, I mean, I had a birthday a few weeks ago and from when we recorded this episode, and I bought myself a birthday present. I bought myself a second monitor for my laptop. So I went on the Wire Cutter right before my birthday, they're a blog for the New York Times that just basically reviews everything. At this point, I just like to do what they say I shouldn't do. They had a whole thing about optimizing your workstation and it was like raise your laptop, get a wireless keyboard, a wireless mouse and have a second screen and I was like, okay, happy birthday to me. I got a second screen and I'm like why didn't I do this before?

Leah: Isn't it life-changing? Life-changing!

Annie: For everything and for the virtual visits, I'm not like, I was having to click back and forth and minimize and missing things. I'm like, now the clients can be big. My charting can be big. Everything is at the right ergonomic height. I got a bolster that I put my feet on. That was a present that I did, I made my business buy me for my birthday. It does make my day-to-day life center. If you haven't taken the plunge, I think I just didn't realize I could have a second screen with my laptop.

Leah: Awesome. Yes, you know what I like it for? I've recently also gotten a second screen like a humongous one. We just got so lucky. We just got our hands on a used one. Somebody was getting rid of and I was like, yes, I'll take it. What I'm loving with, it's kind of silly, but like, I have just a Mac, a pretty small MacBook Air so my screen is always been tiny. Every time I look at like insurance claims spreadsheet, it's like I'm scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and then over and then back and then down and boom. The first time I saw it on this screen, I feel like it was one of those moments where the sun broke three through the clouds and people started singing around me because I was like, you can see everything in one view. This is the most amazing thing, which is like I'm a very, very visual person so to have that my mind just got blown. I was like I understand so much now. Where before I was like, I do not know what's going on on this stupid thing. I get so frustrated with it. I'm like, I don't know what these colors are. I don't know what any of these things mean. Then when it was all in front of me, I was like, this is amazing. I love it so much. I have been on a hunt for like, this is kind of clinical, we're wearing masks, we need to wear masks like how can I make this mask situation better? I totally recognized that my interaction with babies just feels different in a mask right? Before I could really coax smiles out of them and really feel like I was getting some connection as before I'm examining them. That was always a big thing for me. I wanted to make a little connection with these little nuggets before I'm looking around their mouth or assess them. I was feeling like there was a little bit of a limitation with the masks and so I was racking my brain, what could I do? What could I do? I was like, you know what, babies love contrasting colors. Now six months after the pandemic started every company that has ever made masks is like I can make you mask in any way shape or form. We've got all these fun masks now. So I was like I think that there could be a mask out there that maybe would be fun for a newborn or even an older baby to look at with contrasting colors. So I sat on Amazon and went down the wormhole of Amazon. I just put in printed masks, and oh my gosh, I found some so cute masks. The result was the babies freaking love them like smiles, like love it. There's one particular one that I'm like, it only comes in a set with all these other colors. So I hate that because I only get like, I think 15 of them or something like that. So it always makes me so sad because then I have like 60 other masks and these 15 ones that have this bright bird on the front of them. They're beautiful like artwork, and the babies just love them. They're so engaged with me. Their eyes are on me the whole time. They're excited to interact with me because I'm at least a bit more interesting than just eyeballs and glasses. So it's really fun. I've just discovered it maybe over the last month. I cannot tell you, I mean if you are a lactation consultant go out there. I mean, there's so many different prints. That was so funny, if you're a lactation consultant, duh you're listening to our podcasts. If you're interacting with babies, duh you're gonna be doing that too. But you can find stuff that might be something that also is fun for you. There's all kinds of different prints now that I've found them, just try to find things that are contrasting because that's what the little babies just love to look at. So go have fun with that. That's been like the best clinical find I've had in the last couple of months here. It's been really really helped my practice so much. It seems so small but it makes a big difference.

Annie: You mentioned those, it might have been in one of the groups.

Leah: It was.

Annie: I immediately went to buy them because I love babies so much and it does make me sad when they're just not interested in me. Like you, I was like always like I was always I'm good with the baby.

Leah: I know. Everybody works so hard.

Annie: So I'm definitely going to switch to those because also yeah, it's just fun too like why not? We got to do it.

Leah: I just put them over my i95 I still wear KN95 for every visit and I wear those. I guess the other thing with that is I found these KN95, they're the goofiest looking things that you can ever imagine because they're like the duckbill ones. They're the only ones for my face that seal really, really good but after trying, I can't even tell you how many that I have wasted, they have these really soft straps on them. It's really interesting, it goes behind your head so I guess they're like an N95 but the straps that go behind your head are not elastic bands and that has been also life-changing. So I'll have to see if I can find that link to those because it took me so long to find them like something that's comfortable because I've tried everything to just be comfortable especially when I'm in the clinic I might be wearing it and not get to take it off my face for eight hours at all. So like my face was just like stripes across it for several hours after I took it off and so these are the only ones that like seal and fit really good but also don't leave horrific marks on my face because they're too tight or pulling on my ears or all the things. You know how it goes with these masks is like finding the right one out there is so hard. Have you found anything else clinical-wise that you're really liking?

Annie: I always asked for books every year for my birthday and for Christmas. There's always a new book that I want to read from like either our you know lactation or another discipline or you know something about like neuroscience. I maintain a wish list of books, fiction books, and nonfiction books over at my favorite local bookshop, Astoriabookshop.com so that I can support them. The books are more expensive if you buy them through the local bookshop and that's the whole point is to keep them local bookshops going. A book is always great. I end up with so many great books because everybody who loves me knows that I love to read and so they buy me books. I had, my intern came over for an in-person clinical training day just at my house, we call it that but it was like she came to my house and I showed her how to do test weights on my scale. We walked through some oral assessment stuff on my puppet and just talked through a lot of things and I brought out my books and I'm like, you can borrow as many of these as you want. She's like, I think I can handle two of these right now. I'm like come back for more the library's always open, if you want, you know, Beyond the Sea Squirt or there's the book about breath, I think I have. I have, like, I buy everything. If it's even tangentially related to the work we do,

Annie: I want to own it, and I want to read it and I want somebody else to buy it for me.

Leah: Yeah, I love the jaws book, there's the breath book is so good. I love those that help us see how impactful the work that we do is. You can kind of see if this growth and development starts properly with good oral function then this is how we're impacting it long term. Those two books are crazy life-changing. I will say my last like, fun, clinical fine, I have to give credit to my colleague that works with me, Heather, she's so amazing. She's also an amazing boob finder. That's what I call her. I'm like, you're the boob finder because she found these like, it's the perfect teaching boob to me. Then just recently, they came out with a bigger one. It was, I'm showing Annie right now. this squishy boob. It's such a wonderful, the texture is so amazing. It's a little small, you know, I mean it's a handful. A lot of people have a lot more breasts so it was great. She found one that's bigger. Although it's so funny, it literally weighs a pound. But I mean like it's more realistic and that has been one of the best things. Whoever touched this, they're like, oh my gosh, is the best, most realistic feeling breast they've ever touched. It's so hilarious because if you go online to the Amazon description for this one, it's like a stress ball boob and they go into great detail about why you need this to squeeze all day. It's so funny. But I actually bought a case of them. So I'm like these people from Amazon are probably like, what is somebody doing with a case of stress ball breast, but hey, I gave them away as gifts to doulas and midwives. It was so fun because everybody picked them up and they were like, oh my gosh, these are the best boobs. So all credit goes to Heather for that one.

Annie: I'm stealing that idea by the way. I'm sorry if you live in New York City, you might just be getting a breast from me at some point.

Leah: I made little gift bags with these boobs and of course some chocolate candy and business cards. It was such a fun gift to give to people because it was useful. Also like, hey, we need to share the fact that I found this really great boob for everybody. So there's so many fun things out there, I'm sure, I wish this was one of our conversations that we have in the deeper dive where everybody could share all their fun finds. If you guys have fun finds, please share them with us. You can do that on our Facebook pages and things like that. It's so much fun to hear what everybody's finding out there. I'm always like, I want to spend more money on stuff.

Annie: I can always spend more money.

Leah: Like half my income is going to the fun stuff and clinical stuff. It's so so fun.

Annie: Well, this was so fun today, and can't wait for our deeper dive with Kathy Watson Jenna. If you're listening to this on the day the episode comes out it's in a week, still, definitely time to register. Hope you can be there and until next time, Leah it was great chatting with you and now I'm gonna go spend some money.

Leah: Yep, me too. All right. Talk to you soon. Bye.