An Interview with Rachel Curtis of Golden Hour Lactation | Wilmington DE Lactation Consultant

Rachel Curtis, of Golden Hour Lactation, during an office visit.

Today we're sitting down with Rachel Curtis, an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant at Golden Hour Lactation. Based in Wilmington, Delaware, Rachel brings nearly a decade of experience supporting families through the joys and challenges of breastfeeding. In this candid interview, Rachel shares her personal breastfeeding journey, the doula roots that shape her practice and how she combines her clinical knowledge with emotional attunement, offering families not just practical help, but deep, ongoing support throughout their feeding journey.

Do you want to start by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do here at Golden Hour Lactation?

My name is Rachel Curtis. I have been working with breastfeeding families since about 2016 . I started as a doula and I moved into the breastfeeding space because my clients really needed lactation support and it afforded more regular hours than birth work.

I do private appointments here right now. I really like to start with families prenatally. I like when partners can come in, whether that's a spouse or whatever support person is going to be around, it is important to have somebody else, who can help remember things and just sort of learn the lay of the land. And then we do quite a bit of follow up as well, because breastfeeding is not a one and done kind of thing. It's always evolving. Babies are growing. Milk supplies are changing. Circumstances can change as well, like when moms go back to work and other things come up. So it's really, really nice to be able to offer the continuous support over the duration for as long as it's needed. And I think my clients find that really valuable.

They get a lot of emotional support as well, often much more emotional, I think, than parents are maybe expecting when they first seek out lactation support. They're a little surprised sometimes by how much they're caught up in it and how much it ends up meaning to them. And so, whether we're able to resolve everything or not, having someone there to walk through it with them, is probably one of the most valuable things that I'm able to offer. It's just not being alone with it. I am someone who can help think things through with them and remind them of all the things they are doing well. I help keep things in perspective.

Sounds like you bring a lot of that doula energy into your consulting work.

Definitely. I think my doula training definitely colors everything I do. That is my flavor of lactation consulting-- I am very doula-esque.

Could you share a little bit about your own personal journey with breastfeeding, and how that experience has impacted your work?

I think overall, my expierience was pretty rosy and I had a good support system. My mother breastfed. My father had thought that it was great that she breastfed. My partner at the time thought breastfeeding was a great idea. I had a doula. I had midwives. When I had my first, I got connected with a breastfeeding group in my local area at the time, so I had support out the wazoo, and everybody around me thought of it was cool and normal, and that felt very good. Both my kids had tongue ties that kind of threw us for a bit of a loop. But again, we were able to get to resources because of the entourage and our support team that we had.

When it came to weaning, I assumed that two years was the mark that was stated in the guidelines. So I was like: "Oh, I'm sure they'll be done by then". They totally weren't done by then. We breezed right on through that-- breastfeeding was something that I liked to do with them, and it was just part of our thing. It was a big part of our relationship and so I didn't really see any reason to stop. My first son breastfed right through my pregnancy. He kept right on going after the baby was born. That went pretty smoothly. Actually, I seem to remember him helping me with some engorgement, which was very handy.

I have tandem fed as well and that was a big, big plus. I didn't have to worry about supply, because there was always someone who was gonna hold it up. And then if there was ever engorgment, I had a way to find relief.

Yeah, I remember talking to somebody about engorment and they were like, "why don't you put Truman on it?" I'm like: "Yeah, why don't I just put Truman on it? That's a great idea!" And he just took care of it.

I did get touched out, though, by the time my second son was about he was about five months old. At that point, I just kind of felt like there were a lot of hands on my body. At that time, I did not have a lot of support at that time. I didn't live near my family and had to find my resources in that community. I didn't have people at home helping me with the toddler, helping me with food. My spouse at the time, went back to work really soon after our second son was born, and I was pretty overwhelmed. And I do think, looking back, that that was a part of why I was just like, this is like a lot.

We had to have his tongue tie released with scissors by a midwife, because there wasn't in that area, like what we have here.

No Dentists with their lasers?

Where I was, in El Paso, that didn't exist. And I sort of thought that fixed things. But looking back now, as a lactation consultant, I'm realize that I couldn't put this baby down. That baby was never finished eating. That baby never seemed satisfied. I was just always putting him back on, back on, back on. It would take me two hours at night to, like, put him down and be able to step away from him. I didn't know that there was any way out. I was just like, I guess that's just how he is. He was also very particular about how he breastfed, like, I had to lie down to breastfeed, like, that was the only position that he could make it work in. And now I'm like, "That was an oral function issue".

He just kind of like lived on my hip, and that was very challenging, but we continued breastfeeding. He was almost four when he weaned, and it wasn't even like he was breastfeeding every day at that point, but it was starting to get on my nerves. He just seemed to be chomping and chomping. But it was still sad. Overall, I loved it. I loved nursing. I loved breastfeeding. I had a really I'm so glad I was able to do it.

I look at a lot of the challenges that you know, I work with, and I'm like, Wow, gosh, I didn't know how to deal with anything, but I always had plenty of milk-- that was never something I had to worry about. So, yeah, I mean, I had, I had really positive experiences even with challenges.

That's amazing. And something I can relate to. I wouldn't say it's been easy, but it's been uneventful. We haven't had any major obstacles to overcome. The time when I was most challenged was with tandem feeding. That was not something that we planned for.

I was 13 months postpartum with my first son, when I found out I was pregnant again. And I really thought at some point during my pregnancy that my older son would stop nursing. That he was loose interest because I didn't have any milk past three months pregnant, but he continued to dry nurse and that was brutal. I really thought at some point he would just be like, "there's nothing in there. I'm done." And that wasn't the case. And I had a lot of aversion issues that I had to deal with, and that gets pretty intense and can be really challenging to navigate without a support system. I think I just the only support system that I found was a Facebook group, "Breastfeeding Aversion Sucks". Sometimes, I would feel like I just wanted to throw him across the room, and that sounds as awful as it felt. And I hated feeling that way.

It's uncomfortable. I remember my older son, after he stopped, would just be very grabby and not with just my breasts, but particularly around my breast. And I remember that thinking "I'm gonna knock you across the room if you don't stop touching".

You feel stifled. I think a lot of it has to do withthat imbalance of "who's taking care of you?" There are usually not a lot of people around taking care of you, and as a result, you have less to give. This is another thing that I loved about doula work and about this work that I do now as a lactation consultant. I can be here, I can pour this into you,

right? I can give you that.

I think that's a big reason why a lot of moms come back. I mean, there's always breastfeeding stuff to talk about, yeah, a lot of times these issues are kind of longer term, right? And take a lot of sort of tease out. But I think a lot of it is that emotional support component?

A lot of us are really isolated and siloed, and then once we go back to work, well, everybody forgets that we are still postpartum.

Do you do a lot of work with people who are preparing to go back to work and figuring out what their plan is going to be like once they do?

There is the logistics of it, and I feel like that Back to Work visit is a two part visit. One is, the logistics. Like, "how much milk does the baby need?" and "How much milk do you need to pumping and on what schedule?" and then part two is figuring out how the pumping is going, is everything working out, we're not sore, all that kind of stuff.

And then there's also, tending to the emotional part of it. Like, how do you feel about going back to work right now? Most the time, especially if the mom has a typical 12 week leave, they're wrestling with that. It feels too soon. They don't want to leave thier baby behind. I can just validate that. Like, yeah, you shouldn't really have to leave your baby. I'm sorry.

And then seeing if there's anything we can do to make it easier or alleviate that somehow. A lot of moms now might have some remote options, or they're being given, a part time transition that's really helpful. The dads are getting longer leave, so sometimes they can leave the baby with the dad, and that also feels a lot different than dropping a baby off at daycare. So my job is just map that out with them.

It is hard going back to work.

Making sure moms are getting enough sleep. That is a big one. A lot of times, baby's still up all night. Now that you are working, you can't just keep burning the wick at both ends. Sleep is something that we talk about. Some moms are still kind of like toughing it out, and there's a lot of demands on thier bodies right now. So I always try to figure out how they can get some protected sleep overnight.

Picture of me and three of my kids co-sleeping.

I found that that at some point when I returned to work, co-sleeping was the only way I could get sleep. I was away from my baby during the day, and then my baby wasn't taking bottles when I was at work, and so he would be feeding all night long, and I felt like the only way that I could get sleep is if I was horizontal and he just had access. It was hard.

Co-sleeping will often come up in these conversations about sleep. It's hard to make your baby not want to be next to you, right? So some parents are comfortable discussing this as an option, and some are like, "can't do it". Okay, it's fine. If that's gonna scare you. Then that's not good.

You want to be feeling confident in the decisions you're making and comfortable with

whatever that is.

By chance, have you ever read The Continuum Concept?

That sounds really familiar.

I'm pretty sure the author was a supermodel turned anthropologst. So she's in the Amazonian jungle, during the '60's, making these observations of indigenous peoples and their way of life. It's really short, and definitely not, super academic, because I don't think that she wasn't a scholar or anything, she just had a interest and followed it. She wrote a passage which is from an American infant's perspective of being left to cry it out alone in thier crib that is just heart wrenching.

Reading those kinds of ethnographic studies of more traditional cultures. No wonder we're all so screwed up and we're all exhausted. No wonder we're all stressed out or not enjoying our motherhood or our pregnancies.

Yeah, it's interesting to read her observations, and then just to think about like our biology and maybe that our modern ways are fighting against that.

I mean, the isolation during the postpartum period is just a perfect example of that you are not meant to be isolated. And I try to talk about that during my prenatal appointments. It can take moms by surprise. We are meant to have a team of people like helping us out all the time. We are meant to have a village.

It can be really hard, especially if you're somebody who's used to being very independent, to start asking for help, or even just to, take yourself to the mom's group

and sit down in the circle. That's hard to do for some people. I know it was hard for me.

It can be hard to invest in yourself, because you're like, "everything is for the baby or I'm a bad mom", right? And then I do see a lot of working professionals in my practice who are kind of type-A moms. And they are like "I'm gonna nail this thing", right? Like, I'm gonna do it all. And it's a real lesson in humility, self-acceptance, and just being kind and forgiving to yourself, that's a huge hurdle. And the lesson is that maybe I do have to compromise. Maybe I can't do it all, maybe I'm not gonna make the milk I wanted to make, or I have to turn over some of this to someone else so that I can rest. And that's actually what's best for my baby. It is such a transformation. There's so much potential for your own growth through it. But that's, that's a big one, yeah, that comes up a lot. Or it's like, this is my achievement. This is my goal. I can't let go of it.

I see that a lot too, in my work as a newborn photographer. In that regard, I feel that it is not my place to encourage people gently, to take a step back and put down their down their list or their phone app.

It is where you see a lot of anxiety, and OCD. These things can easily spiral during this period. It is that pursuit "I need to keep track of every ounce" and "how many minutes am I pumping on each side?" and just all the counting of things. At some point we should be kind of like stepping away from it. And can we just kind of like, feel our way through this a little bit?

I'm sure that is part of being a doula. You are working with women to move intuitively through the birth process, which isn't always intuitive.

I like to have my clients drop in to see what thier body has to tell them. Bodies tell us a lot.

Do you have exercises that you work people through? How do you get them to tap into their bodies?

I don't have any particular exercises that I use, but do ask the question. How does this feel? What do you think? Or how are you sleeping? Like, maybe nobody's even asking those questions, okay, but how many hours are you actually asleep at a time? How is this wearing on you? And then how long do you get into your day before you kind of start really flagging and like, what do you notice when you do? Like just kind of turning their attention towards it more.

I used to teach a prenatal breastfeeding class, and I wouls have couples do a mindfulness excersive where I would have them imagine what nursing would be like. That was really beautiful. It was, there was always somebody with tears in thier eyes when we would bring it to a close. I would guide them to just imagine their baby looking up at them and for them to see that she really loves what she's doing, and it's like your body that's meeting all of her needs. You're nurturing her.

I was like, wow, this is like, powerful stuff,. And so I try to focus in more on that too. Especially for the moms who are like, "the nursing is really important".

That emotional component this is so huge. Not to change the subject abruptly, but can we talk about weaning?

I have four kids, and I've weaned them all between two and three. And my three year old, he has had the longest run, which is funny to me because he Mr. Independent in so many other ways. I've weaned one of them very abruptly and perhaps dramatically, and I have weaned them gently. When I was done with breastfeeding my second, my mother in law suggested that I use chili pepper on my nipples which I did. It was Mother's Day,and all we had were habaneros. It was the most painful, awful experience for the both of us. I had two bowls of milk, that I rested my boobs in because my nipples hurt so badly, and then my daughter was just completely put off by it. And, yeah, I guess it was effective because she never nursed again. And I don't think she has any long term trauma-- she is still snuggly enough, sweet, but oh my goodness that was rough. Thinking back to it, I was desperate to regain my body.

People don't have good advice for how to wean your toddler. And People didn't show you a better way to do things.

Yeah, chili pepper nipples was the advice I got, and that's what I followed. It worked, but it made me feel horrible.

With my youngest, we are finally done nursing now. But it was a very long, slow process. Not offering, but not refusing. I also felt very conflicted throughout the process, because I was impatient for this over and then we would have these really tender and sweet morning nrusing sessions and that was the way we started the day for so long. I had a hard time giving those up when he just started getting out of bed and running off to play.

Would you want to speak about nursing toddlers and what lactation support for someone weaning a toddler might look like?

Yeah, I think it's pretty rare where a mom doesn't feel conflicted about weaning thier toddler. No matter how tired we are it, there's a feeling of "what if that was the last time?"

I honestly don't know if I can pinpoint that last time Hugo nursed. I made sure that I took photos very intentionally before, because I knew that we were coming up on that time. We were going sometimes days between nursing at the end. I just wanted to have something to remember it. But we carried on maybe another month or two after that.

I think that's something nice that we can do when we know that we are coming close to the end of a nursing relations or when you know it is last time. It is a way to commormate it and make it special. Makes it into a celebration. I think the nice thing to do with older toddlers is to plan for it and make it into sort of a graduation. And that can make them feel bigger and older and like they are celebrating an accomplishment. And that also takes it off of you where you don't feel like you are taking something away from them. They are getting something too.

there are also a lot of books out there too like Baby Moon by Yvetter Reid, and Milkies In The Morning: A Gentle Night Weaning Storybook by Jennifer Saleem, and Loving Comfort by Julie Dillemuth.

I have heard families reading some of these books and it being very effective. Kids understand a lot more than we give them credit for and reading these stories can be very helpful.

As we were winding down, I would ask my son "How much milk was there?" or "Did anything come out?" And I knew there was very little left, and a lot of times he would answer "No" or shake his head. I wanted him to make the connection.

I think that something most people don't understand about toddler weaning is that there is a relational piece. The child hasan opinion, and will fight you on things and beg you for things. It is just so heart rending, just going into that without any guidance or support.

I found that my partner was really pivotal in redirecting, and comforting, and taking over the bed time routine-- things that my son would normally associate with nursing. My partner was able to handle those things and that that was helpful, amd I am so grateful, but I know that is not an option for everyone.

Having your partner's support while you are going through that big change is also very helpful. Also giving yourself the time for it. You know, you are not going to just gonna pick a day on the calendar and when that days rolls around you are going move into this different space.

One idea that I really love that I will usually offer during these toddler weaning consults is to make a book with your toddler. If you are starting to night wean, make a book about night weaning. What could you start with? Well, everyone sleeps at night. You can put your child's older siblings into the book and have them modeling sleeping through the night on one of the pages. That is really helpful for older toddlers. Even if they aren't nursing at night anymoe, they can do this.

I love that. There is a children's book author. I think her name is Leslie Petrocelli and she has those children's books that are about potty training for instance and there is a kid and he's looking at the dog and the book will ask "What does doggy do" Well doggy goes pee outside. "What does kitty do" Kitty pees in the litter box". That was really helpful when we were potty training and I could see how making a personalized book about weaning would be a really great idea for some families.

Yes, trying to emphasise that even though there is this loss. That this is who you are now. This is part of being a bigger, more indepenent person. Emphasize that they are capable and can do all this great stuff that babies can't do, right? You can draw with them in their own little book and that makes it more theres. And makes it more collaborative, right? And then they can go and look at their book. You can point back to the book. We can revisit the book. We can read the book at night instead of nursing. I thin kthat can be hugely helpful to slowly change the framework in thier mind.

An example of an image taken at a weaning session. At the start of photo session the mom lit candles and at the end of the session they ceremonially blew them out one by one.

I personally love being hired for weaning sessions. And those are more about closure and commemoration for the moms, but sometimes we are reading through the special books that helped with process or the mom and child have a little ritual that is symbolic of the close of this chapter. It feels really special to be apart of that.

Usually when you are a nursing mother, it's such a big part of your identity as mother. So when your weaning your child, it is a shift in identity. There's not really anything else like it. It is such a tender, sweet thing, and so when you are in that transition and moving on to becoming a mom to older kids, doing something to commemoriate your journey can be really helpful. Also it is helpful to keep in perspective that you can do other stuff with your kids now that they are a little older.

There are sometimes when a picture from when they were little flashes up on my phone, and I get nostaligic, then I have to remember the great conversation I just had with my kids and all these things I can share with them now.

Yeah, I have two older kids and two younger kids and it has been a really nice perspective to have the second time around with my younger boys. I know what is coming. I know what is on the other side. and it's been really fun to just keep moving forward and embrace the seasons as they come. I love getting to know the people that my girls are growing into and I'm excited to get to know the boys in the same way as they get older.

What are the benefits of offering office visits for lacation support are for your clients?

I had one mom recently write to me and tell me that coming into the office for lactation visits was her "me time" I thought that was so cool. You don't have to worry about cleaning. I have all the things you need here. It's this controled enviorment. You have an hour, we are going to talk about what you need to, and then you come back next week and everything is familiar. It's calm, it's quiet-- especially if there are dogs or other kids at home. It is especially nice for moms who have one or two other kids at home, just to leave the house and have some time to focus on the new baby. I really like to be the calm and the ancor during my visits and seeing my clients in the office helps me do that for them.

Can we talk a little bit about lactation support as self care? That seems to be a little bit of a theme to me as we are talking.

I'm a person who is following up with you over the longer term. Who's the person you can come in that really sit and listen to you talk about how long your nursing sessions are and what things are different with nursing this baby compared to your last. No one else is really into this stuff, and you get my entire focus. I can be your cheerleader-- "Great! You go to sleep for four hours last night!!" Lactation consultants are looking out for you-- for both of you-- and that is a lot of reassurance which can be comforting.

Where you can connect with Rachel:

website: www.goldenhourlactation.com

Instagram: @goldenhourlactation

Facebook: @goldenhourlactation