Nancy, it is my opinion that preparing to be a well rounded and 
knowledgeable IBCLC takes about 4-5 years. I come out of an LLL 
background and believe it takes the average Leader that long. I have 
seen many, many, many IBCLCs who hurry through and have very little 
knowledge and skills behind the badge. This is a profession of mostly 
self taught people and if one is not training daily and working with 
mothers daily, one needs a long time to get good.

We have many PCs at my job who have worked there over 5 years and still 
aren't knowledgeable/skilled enough to be a good IBCLC because they 
don't do any reading or studying. If you work part-time in the OB 
section of the hospital, you maybe get to help 1-2 moms latch their 
babies on per shift, right? How minutes do you get with each mom and new 
baby? You need to take the time to actually watch the babies suck and 
swallow, latch-on etc for whole feedings (30 minutes or longer). 
Observing what babies really do is the best way to learn. And if you get 
a mom birthing with no drugs (epidurals), then really watch that baby as 
it is closer to natural and normal than you see most of the time with 
medicalized births. You need to know what is natural and normal as well 
as medicalized.

I would also suggest you read THE BREASTFEEDING ANSWER BOOK, skim 
through Hale's book, Riordan's book, Lawrence's book, and The Lactation 
Consultant in Private Practice. THE WOMANLY ART OF BREASTFEEDING and 
Breastfeeding Made Simple are primers on normal infant behavior. And if 
you BF your own children past one year, that is wonderful and you 
understand what is normal for toddler nursing. If you have no experience 
with toddler nursing, then attend several LLL Meetings, and do some 
reading on the subject. IBCLCs should know newborn, infant, older baby, 
toddler and preschooler nursing habits.

We have had discussions on this forum about how 96% of test takers pass 
the exam. Book knowledge, enough to pass the exam is fairly easy to get. 
Real skills and higher level knowledge so that you are an asset to the 
mothers who pay for your services as an IBCLC is harder. You need to 
start keeping track of the mothers you help, recording hours spent (and 
be truthful as lying only hurts those moms you help in the future). 
IBCLCs, like nurses, must keep written records. I would keep a notebook 
where you write the name of every mother you help and how much time 
spent and tally it up monthly or whatever. This notebook is your proof 
of who you helped and when for exam record keeping purposes. Pay 
attention to the mother's faces and body language that you help so you 
can learn how your techniques make the mothers feel and so you can 
better your skills. You also need to attend many CE conferences. As many 
as you can. That alone probably takes several years as most of us can't 
go to them every month.

What moms really need is an IBCLC with some good skills and knowledge 
base, they don't need another person in this profession who can't solve 
problems or don't know what tongue tie looks like.

Take your time and do it right, please!

Best wishes, Kathy Eng, BSW, IBCLC

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