I need some help and need to vent!!

[MothertheMother]

I posted this on a breastfeeding board a couple of days ago...

This may be long so bare with me...

I've introduced myself before but just in case I am in the process of
doula cert with CAPPA. One of my goals as a doula is to check out all
of the childbirth resources in my area so that I may give my clients
first hand information about what is available. With that said, last
night I attended one of our military expectant parenting classes. The
way it is set up is class 1. Breastfeeding 2. L&D 3. Mother Baby.
Each class is 2 hours so you can imagine they are quite lacking in
information for our military moms. To try to condense this I spoke at
length with the woman teaching the breastfeeding portion of the class. She is part of Community Health Nursing (and used to work on Mother Baby floor). Not an IBCLC,
not a lactation educator. She has had some training but I really
don't know what was involved. To say the least the class was
HORRIBLE. In her defense she has been deployed for the past year and
this is the second class she has taught since she has been back.
There is no set class outline...it is up to the instructor to teach
what they want to teach. She informed me that she is going to be TDY
(out of town) for the next 3 months and actually asks me if I would
be interested in teaching the class!! Well, of course I would because
I think I could do a much better job but I have a feeling it wont fly
because I am not a nurse etc. But...I did talk to her about at least
brainstorming together to better her class. She asked my opinion
about her class and I tried to be honest but not harsh. So I think
she would really listen to my advice about content and visuals etc.
So, where to I start. And how do we condense all the info into 2
hours?? Ugh, I need some help. I think a local IBCLC from a different
hospital might give me some help and I am sure I can call on the
local LLL leader. But I really feel like I would like to put
something to paper first so as not to waste their time. So they can
add subtract etc instead of starting from scratch. Anyway, I will
stop for now...I look forward to hearing your advice.

After I posted this only 1 person responded to me privately. The reason this gets under my skin so badly is the next day someone asked if anyone could recommend a good hair salon and there have been at least 12 responses.

I don't know why I didn't just post this here in the first place!!! Ugh...any advice??

[Tiffany]

I just wanted to post that I am not ignoring you , but I just logged on now for a quick check and have to go to bed. I'm going to re-read this tomorrow and hopefully I will have some advice for you (as well as others!).

[DL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tiffany I just wanted to post that I am not ignoring you , but I just logged on now for a quick check and have to go to bed. I'm going to re-read this tomorrow and hopefully I will have some advice for you (as well as others!).

Yeah....what Tiffany said! I was actually getting ready to post something quite similar! I'm not sure if I have anything quality to contribute....but let me think on it. I know that there are others on here far more qualified than I on this topic. (for some reason, this didn't show up in my "new posts")

[Need2read]

I think that you should contact other CBE's (not necessarily in your area) and ask them what their outlines are like for those subjects. Write up a list of the sub-topics you need to cover and you and the other teacher should physically practice it together. Anticipate time for questions, discussion, and anything else that could come up. I also think that practicing it will give you ideas of other things you may want to cover. The only hard part is ifguring out what you can cut.

You may also want to come up with hand outs to give parents on subjects you either aren't covering subjects completely, web resources, book lists, etc.

Hope that helped.

[Stacie]

...

[Babies_Bellies_Boobies]

my basic bf class that i taught was actually only an hour long, so i think 2 hours would be perfect.

handouts/pamplets from lll and the learning curve may be a good place to start.