What should you bring to a lactation consultant appointment?
The feeding record a consultant actually works from, where to find breastfeeding help in Ireland and how to have the numbers on your phone instead of in your head.
In short
Bring a feeding diary covering the last few days: each feed with its time, which side or sides and how long, any bottles or expressed milk with amounts, wet and dirty nappy counts and any weights from your PHN or GP visits. Bring the baby's notes if you have them, and your own questions written down. A diary logged at the time beats a tired memory every time.
- The HSE lists free breastfeeding supports on hse.ie, including support groups and expert help.
- For a private consultant, the ALCI directory on alcireland.ie lists IBCLC-certified lactation consultants.
- A consultant works from times, sides, durations, nappy counts and weights, not impressions.
- Lullagram's feed timer logs sides and durations automatically; nappies and weights live in the same place.
- A share summary turns the diary into a record you can show at the appointment.
Bring your feeding record, your baby's notes and your questions. That is the short answer, and the feeding record is the part most parents arrive without. A lactation consultant can tell a great deal from watching one feed, but the pattern over days is what turns a guess into a plan, and the pattern only exists if someone wrote it down.
When do parents see a lactation consultant?
Usually when feeding hurts, when the latch will not come, when weight gain is slow or when supply feels like a mystery, and sometimes simply because a second pair of experienced eyes makes the hard first weeks easier. There is no wrong reason: if feeding is worrying you, that is reason enough to ask for help.
In Ireland the help comes in two forms. The HSE provides free breastfeeding supports, listed on hse.ie, including support groups around the country and ways to put your question to an expert; many maternity hospitals have lactation staff, and your public health nurse can point you to what is near you. Privately, you can book an IBCLC, an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, directly: the Association of Lactation Consultants in Ireland keeps a directory of its members at alcireland.ie. Start with the public supports; they exist for exactly this.
What does a lactation consultant actually need from you?
A consultant will watch a feed, but the history carries half the appointment. The details that matter are concrete:
- Feeds with times and sides: when each feed happened, which side or sides and how long on each. Patterns across a few days tell far more than any single feed.
- Bottles and expressing: any expressed milk or formula, with amounts and times.
- Nappy counts: wet and dirty nappies each day, because nappies are the everyday sign of how much milk is going in.
- Weights: the birth weight and any weights since, from your PHN or GP visits.
- The story so far: the birth, anything already tried, anything that hurt and what you have been told by the hospital or PHN.
Bring the baby's hospital or PHN notes if you have them, and write your own questions down beforehand, because the appointment goes fast and a feeding baby is a distracting co-presenter.
Why does a phone diary beat memory?
Because newborn feeds blur. Nobody who has done the 2am and the 4am and the 5:30am feed can swear which side the last one ended on, and the week's feeds merge into one long feed with gaps. Yet those are exactly the numbers the appointment hangs on: how many feeds in 24 hours, how long on each side, how many wet nappies today.
A diary logged at the time, with the feed, settles it. You stop reconstructing the week in the waiting room and hand over real numbers instead. The same record is useful at PHN visits and the 6 week check, where the first questions are the same ones.
How does Lullagram record all of this?
Lullagram's feed timer is built for one-handed 3am use. Start it when the feed starts and tap the side: the time, the side and the duration log themselves, and switching sides is one tap. Bottles and expressed milk go in with amounts. Nappies are logged at the changing mat in a tap, wet or dirty, and weights go in the same timeline, so the whole picture lives in one place instead of three notebooks.
Both parents share the one tracker, so whoever did the night feed has already filled in the diary for whoever takes the appointment. Daily totals show feeds and nappies per day at a glance.
How do I share the diary at the appointment?
Open the share summary and the recent days come out as a clear, readable record: feeds with times, sides and durations, nappy counts and weights. Show the screen, or send it ahead by WhatsApp or email if the consultant asks for a history before the visit. No printouts, no reading your own 4am handwriting.
If you are wondering about the bigger feeding picture first, our guides to whether your baby is getting enough breast milk and why a baby won't latch cover the common worries, written from HSE guidance.
Where can I get breastfeeding help in Ireland?
Start with the HSE's breastfeeding pages on hse.ie, which cover the common problems and list the free supports, and ask your public health nurse what runs locally. For a private IBCLC, the ALCI directory at alcireland.ie lists certified consultants by area. If your baby seems unwell, or you are worried beyond feeding, talk to your GP or PHN.
Sources and guidance
Health guidance in this article follows the HSE. It is general information for parents in Ireland, not medical advice: for anything clinical, talk to your GP, PHN or lactation consultant. Links checked 6 November 2026.
I've used the app since my now 3 month old was born and it's honestly brilliant. Very handy when me and my husband were doing handovers, no one needed to be woken up or questioned! Great resource for the public health nurse when we had concerns about feeding etc, it was all recorded in the app. It's also really refreshing to have an app like this geared towards parents in Ireland.