The Education you need + the support you deserve
There are a lot of things your IBCLC course should be – "confusing" isn’t one of them.
We’re here to make it easy to become an exceptional lactation consultant with a clear, comprehensive, and clinically relevant 95-hour IBCLC course that gets you ready for your exam and your career.
Only 20 spots remaining in our September 2025 cohort!
Becoming an IBCLC feels a liiiittle too much like you’re building the plane while you’re flying it.
And we don’t know about you, but that’s not a flight we want to board.
The requirements? Confusing. The path to get there? Unclear. The support you feel as you’re cobbling together random courses and lessons to check off your 95 hours of education and prep for the certifying exam?
Wait – what support?
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But because all of the available IBCLC courses and resources are so disjointed, instead you’re:
You just want to finish your education hours, pass your exam, become a great IBCLC, and support parents and babies.
Piecing together lactation education from random webinars, hoping it adds up to 95 hours (and praying it’s all approved).
Spending more time Googling “what qualifies for IBCLC hours” than actually learning anything useful.
Feeling behind — like everyone else has some secret IBCLC roadmap that you somehow missed.
Wishing for structure and support… but all you’ve found so far are dry PowerPoints or outdated PDFs.
Basically, all you can think is “It shouldn’t be this hard to become an IBCLC” – and we wholeheartedly agree, which is why we're making it much, much easier.
The Infant Feeding Counselor® Course
The IFC® Course was designed by experienced educators and IBCLCs, grounded in real-world experience, and built to help you think critically about patient care. With hands-on learning, live implementation calls, personalized feedback throughout, you’ll leave with more than just the hours you need to sit for the IBCLC exam — you’ll have the clinical thinking and confidence to support real families, right from the start.
The only 95-hour IBCLC course that’s as good in practice as it is on paper
welcome to
We believe that the right IBCLC course should do more than check boxes — it should shape the confident, compassionate professional you’re working to become.
Here’s how we make sure you’re prepared for your IBCLC exam and the career that comes after:
LEAARC-Approved Curriculum
The IFC® Course was created by experienced educators with your learning in mind – so you actually understand the why behind infant feeding care, not just the what.
Hands-On Experience
From implementation calls to verbal assessments and in-person training options, we help you actually apply what you’ve learned – so you’re better prepared for your exam and real patient care.
Personalized Support
You’ll have direct access to Hope and Sydney throughout the course — with feedback on your work, answers to your questions, and support that helps you grow as a future IBCLC.
"I cannot recommend this course enough!"
Annalisa Alberg
"The materials presented were put together in a way to make you feel confident, and both Hope and Sydney were hands on the whole time for guidance. I am so thankful to have found them to start my journey towards my IBCLC!"
No matter which pathway you choose to become an IBCLC, you’ll need 95 hours of lactation-specific education –
The IFC® Course is carefully designed to cover every single subject listed in the IBLCE Detailed Content Outline, including the 5 required hours of communication skills.
You’ll receive individualized feedback throughout the course as assignments are graded, and provided with assessments to ensure you’re gaining a deep & practical understanding of the material.
And you'll get them all with the Infant FEeding Counselor® Course
Module 01.
The Field of Lactation
Before you dive into clinical skills, you need to understand the landscape and the science supporting human milk feeding. This module sets the stage for your career by clarifying the role of an IBCLC, how lactation fits within the healthcare system, the evidence behind human-milk feeding, and what it actually looks like to work in this field.
What You'll Learn:
- The history and scope of the lactation profession
- The role of an IBCLC within interdisciplinary care
- Common settings and career paths in lactation
- Credentialing, ethics, and professional standards
- Current evidence for WHY we recommend human milk
Module 02.
A Baseline for Infant Feeding
Here’s where you build the foundation. You’ll get a clear understanding of what typical infant feeding looks like — so you can spot when something isn’t right (and when it is!) and step in with confidence.
What You'll Learn:
- Biological norms for breast/chestfeeding and human milk
- Breast and oral anatomy and infant feeding reflexes
- Expected growth, intake, and feeding behavior by age
- The basics of human milk composition
Module 03.
Supporting A Healthy Dyad
Feeding is about more than just food (or in this case, milk). In this module, you’ll learn how to care for the parent-infant dyad as a unit — with techniques that center bonding, trust, and individualized support.
What You'll Learn:
- Techniques for latch, positioning, and effective milk transfer
- How to support dyads with skin-to-skin, bonding, and attachment
- Milk expression and milk supply management
- Tools for tracking infant growth and development
- Postpartum recovery and the emotional landscape of early parenthood
- Promoting feeding success through respectful, individualized care
Module 04.
Counseling & Communication
Clinical knowledge is essential — but if you can’t communicate clearly and compassionately, it won’t matter. This module gives you the tools to connect, educate, and empower families without overwhelming them.
What You'll Learn:
- Foundational counseling techniques for lactation care
- Working with diverse family structures and feeding goals
- Navigating cultural humility and health equity
- Setting boundaries, offering guidance, and building trust
Module 05.
Managing Infant Conditions
When something feels off, you need to know how to respond. This module gives you the clinical insight to recognize feeding-related conditions in infants and respond with clarity, care, and collaboration.
What You'll Learn:
- Identify and address issues like low weight gain, jaundice, and hypoglycemia
- Manage tongue ties and other oral function challenges
- Coordinate care for congenital anomalies and complex cases
- Collaborate with pediatricians and specialists
Module 06.
Managing Parent Conditions
Lactation is deeply connected to parental health — and this module gives you the tools to support it all. From hormonal imbalances to mental health and relactation journeys, we’ll help you get ready to see people through it all.
What You'll Learn:
- Manage low milk supply, oversupply, and hormonal imbalances
- Navigate parental mental health, medications, and feeding-related stress
- Navigate induced lactation, relactation, and weaning
- Support chestfeeding, body autonomy, and inclusive care
Everything you'll receive when you join
The Infant Feeding Counselor® IBCLC Course
✓ The complete 95-hour LEAARC-approved curriculum, available when your specific cohort begins
✓ Real-world clinical scenarios to help you prepare for your exam and hands-on patient care
✓ Additional education sessions from industry-leading professionals, like Bryna Hayden and Susan Howard
✓ Live training sessions for each module to further your learning
*Attendance at one live session per module is required. Students have up to one year to complete all six (6) required live sessions. View details here.
✓ Individualized feedback on assignments & thoughtful responses from trained professionals, so you can sharpen your critical thinking & feel confident applying what you’ve learned.
✓ A verbal final assessment with guided feedback from an IBCLC, so you can strengthen your skills and feel prepared to dive into practice after passing your IBCLC exam.
$1500
pay in full
$375 x 4
pay monthly
Can we tell you a secret about the best IBCLCs?
They’re not the ones diving straight into tongue ties, bottle refusal, hormone imbalances, or induced lactation protocols. Those specialties matter — but the basics come first.
The best, most-trusted IBCLCs are the ones who started their careers by building an unshakeable foundation in lactation physiology, counseling, and critical thinking — so they’re prepared for any feeding scenario and any specialty they choose to pursue.
And those are the kind of IBCLCs who graduate from the IFC® Course.
"The IFC® Course was WELL worth the time and investment!"
Emily Wojciechowski
"It provided me with all of the necessary tools to go from brand new to the field of lactation to being confident to begin my IBCLC Pathway 3 clinical hours in just 5 short months. The instructors are available and accessible to support you along the way and provide valuable feedback on assignments. I also love how inclusive the program is of all different ways to feed babies for all different types of families, not a 'one size fits all' approach."
Being good at something is way different than teaching someone how to be good at something.
Around here, we accept nothing less than doing both.
Plenty of courses can throw together the required hours — but if you want to feel prepared for both the IBCLC exam and real-world patient care, you need a course that breaks down complex topics clearly and helps you build the clinical judgment you’ll rely on every day with real families.
PhD, RDN, IBCLC, Creator of the IFC® Course
As an experienced IBCLC and collegiate professor of nutrition, I couldn’t stand watching so many passionate future providers struggle to navigate the path to becoming an IBCLC. Even though there were *technically* a lot of options out there for education hours, the process felt unnecessarily confusing – and often left students feeling unprepared for both the exam and clinical practice.
That’s why I built the IFC® course using the same level of care, structure, and evidence-based teaching I use with my university students — because you deserve so much better than guesswork when it comes to preparing for the IBCLC exam and the work that comes after.
Dr. Hope Lima
LISW-CP, LCSW, LCAS, IFC, IBCLC, Director of Education and Engagement
I lead our live implementation calls, give you feedback on assignments, and help you apply what you’re learning in practical, clinical ways. With a background in social work and a deep love for education, I’m here to support you from start to finish — whether that’s helping you think through a tricky concept or celebrating when you pass your final assessment.
Sydney Estes
"Both Hope and Sydney are such knowledgable, personable, and thoughtful professionals in this field."
"I am truly grateful I had the opportunity to learn from both of them in my journey to become an IBCLC."
Colleen Hanlon
The IFC® Course
✅ Designed and taught by educators with clinical + academic expertise, and the skills to help you really understand and apply what you're learning to your future clinical practice.
✅ LEAARC-approved curriculum built from the ground up to meet all 95 hours and to make sense, from start to finish.
✅ Personalized feedback on assignments to help you learn and improve.
✅ Live implementation calls to practice clinical decision-making.
✅ Verbal final assessment to help you build confidence in patient communication.
✅ Access to instructors for questions, feedback, and support.
✅ Taught at a graduate level, with a focus on critical thinking, clinical readiness, and IBCLC exam preparation.
🚫 Often led by clinicians, not trained teachers – which means the content may be accurate, but not always explained in a way that helps you truly understand or apply it.
🚫 Courses originally designed as partial trainings on specific topics, then stretched to meet the 95-hour requirement — which can lead to gaps and repetition.
🚫 Self-paced quizzes that are auto-graded, with little to no feedback – so you never know if you're really exam-ready.
🚫 Passive lectures or podcast-style lessons with no real-time application, and no opportunity to role-play or apply skills in real-world scenarios before certification.
🚫 Access to a support email that doesn’t get checked – or replied to.
🚫 Focused on information delivery, not application - which means you may memorize facts, but struggle with the clinical reasoning skills the IBCLC exam is designed to test.
Other online IBCLC Courses
Enroll In The Infant Feeding Counselor® IBCLC Course
Select Your Cohort
The Infant Feeding Counselor® Course opens three times per year — in January, May, and September — with limited seats in each cohort to keep the experience personal and supportive.
Pick a Payment Plan
Pay in full ($1500) or make four monthly payments of $375 ($1500 total). To check your eligibility for reduced-rate tuition (for countries in Tiers 2 & 3 as designated by IBCLE), please click here.
Get Ready to Dive In
Once you’re enrolled, you’ll receive next steps to help you prepare — including instructions for accessing the course site when your cohort begins, and how to order your required textbook.
How to
"This course went far above my expectations!"
Both Sydney and Hope are highly knowledgeable and extremely passionate about what they do and that directly translates into the course material. Everything included felt intentional and curated to provide the best possible education to anyone looking to pursue a career supporting lactating individuals and their babies.”
Christie Bradley
January 2025
coming soon!
May 2026
coming soon!
Participants have one calendar year from the start date of their enrolled cohort to complete the IFC® requirements, including attending the required live sessions. Beginning in Spring 2024, live sessions will not be recorded and so participants will have up to three opportunities to attend the live session that correlates with each module. If all requirements are not completed in one calendar year, participants will be able to pay a reduced renewal fee of $500 to maintain access to the course for an additional cohort window and complete the requirements.
Join The Next Cohort Of The IFC® IBCLC Course
Now enrolling September 2025 • Now enrolling September 2025 • Now enrolling September 2025 • Now enrolling September 2025 •
Our next cohort begins on September 15, 2025 - come join us!
$1500 or four (4) monthly payments of $375
You’ll already be done with your requirements and taking your IBCLC exam.
In the time it takes other aspiring IBCLCs to Google requirements repeatedly, piece together random webinars from across the entire Internet, and have to backpedal each time they found out a course doesn’t meet the requirements (despite the fact that they already spent time and money on it) –
And what’s more, you’ll be doing it with the support of highly qualified instructors, the confidence that comes from truly understanding the material, and the preparation you need to start your career as an IBCLC feeling ready, capable, and proud of how you got there.
18 short weeks from now, you *could* be…
Still trying to figure out what counts toward your 95 hours — and finding out too late that your webinar binge didn’t meet IBLCE standards
Wasting time on pre-recorded lectures that don’t actually help you feel ready to work with real families
Struggling to explain – or understand – a feeding issue in your first shadowing session because it wasn’t covered in your lectures
Feeling behind your peers who already secured their mentors and started clinical hours
18 short weeks from now, you *could* be…
Done with your 95 hours and confidently moving into your supervised clinical practice
Showing up to mentorship or shadowing opportunities with the ability to think critically, ask the right questions, and apply what you’ve learned
Earning the trust of your IBCLC mentors by demonstrating a clear grasp of infant feeding basics
Preparing for your exam with less stress — because you’ve already learned the material in a way that sticks
Getting closer to launching your IBCLC career with structure, clarity, and support behind you
The Infant Feeding Counselor® IBCLC Course is the perfect option if you’re a…
Healthcare professional (like a dentist, speech therapist, or dietitian) looking for a career pivot – or just some additional skills to serve your breastfeeding or infant patients better.
Birth worker, doula, or postpartum professional ready to take the next step toward IBCLC certification.
CLS or CLC who wants to deepen your knowledge, fill in the gaps, and move toward your IBCLC with confidence.
Parent or caregiver whose own feeding experience sparked a passion for helping others — and now you’re ready to pursue this professionally.
Busy working adult who needs structure, flexibility, and real support while completing your 95 hours.
Aspiring IBCLC who’s overwhelmed by all the “build your own pathway” noise and just wants a clear, trusted education path that actually prepares you.
Frequently Asked Questions
What pathway is this course designed for?
Do I have to attend the live implementation calls?
How long do I have to complete the course?
Can I take this course while working full-time/parenting?
Will this course count for any of my continuing education?
Will this course prepare me for the IBCLC exam?
What happens after I finish the course?
The IFC® Course is LEAARC-approved and ideal for students pursuing Pathway 1 or Pathway 3. It fulfills the required lactation-specific & communication education hours — after completing it, you’ll move on to supervised practice hours before sitting for the IBCLC exam.
What pathway is this course designed for?
Back to FAQ
Yes — students are required to attend one live session per module (six total). This ensures you’re not just watching videos, but actively building your clinical reasoning and communication skills. You have up to one year after joining a cohort to complete your live sessions (if there’s any you can’t make, you can join that module’s call during the next cohort). If all requirements are not completed in one calendar year, participants will be able to pay a renewal fee of $500 to maintain access to the course for an additional cohort window and complete the requirements.
Do I have to attend the live implementation calls?
Back to FAQ
You have up to 12 months to complete the course, including all live sessions and coursework — but many students finish within 3–6 months.
How long do I have to complete the course?
Back to FAQ
Yes! The course is designed with working professionals and caregivers in mind. You can move through the content on your own schedule and attend live calls that fit your availability.You have up to 12 months to complete the course, including all live sessions and coursework — but many students finish within 3–6 months.
Can I take this course while working full-time or parenting?
Back to FAQ
The IFC® Course is approved for 86.75 CEUs for Registered Dietitians. We are happy to provide a syllabus to offer as proof of continuing education for other credentialing bodies upon request.
I’m already a healthcare professional – will this course count for any of my continuing education?
Back to FAQ
Yes — the required textbook is Core Curriculum for Interdisciplinary Lactation Care. You’ll receive all the details (including where to get it) once you enroll.
Do I need any textbooks or additional materials?
Back to FAQ
Absolutely. The content is designed to not only meet IBCLC requirements but actually help you retain what you’re learning — so you can pass the exam and feel confident practicing in real clinical settings. For more support, you can also purchase our IBCLC Exam Study Guide!
Will this course prepare me for the exam?
Back to FAQ
Once you’ve completed all components and attended the required live sessions, you’ll receive documentation of your 95 education hours. If you choose to attend an in-person capstone training or shadow an IBCLC, you can also take a verbal assessment to earn your IFC® credential. From there, you can begin your clinical experience hours and prepare to apply for the IBCLC exam.
What happens after I finish the course?