What Is the MumBo™? And Why It Helps You Understand Breastfeeding More Clearly

For years I was honestly a bit embarrassed about the way my brain worked. I could only understand something fully if I learned it so deeply that I could simplify it in my mind. I thought it meant I was a bit slow or a bit “simple.” Then one day I came across a quote.

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” — Albert Einstein

And I remember thinking… oh.
Maybe this thing I’d felt ashamed of all these years wasn’t a flaw at all.
Maybe it was actually a gift.

Looking back, that ability to simplify the complicated has shaped my entire career. In the early days I was drawn to complex feeding cases. The babies whose behaviour didn’t match the textbook. The mums who had tried everything and still felt lost. Those stories hooked me. Not because I wanted to fix people but because I wanted to understand them.

I realised something important. Being a breastfeeding specialist didn’t mean convincing anyone to breastfeed. It meant helping mums who wanted to breastfeed figure out how to do it, even when simple or complicated things stood in the way. No guilt. No gold stars. Just genuine support.

At some point I caught myself talking about all the unusual cases I’d worked through and thought… what would be the most complex challenge I could ever take on?
The answer was clear.

Create something simple that could help every mum personalise feeding, no matter her story.

That became the MumBo™.
And it became the focus of my entire career.

MumBo™: Definition

The MumBo™ is the Mum and Baby Combination — the unique mix of maternal and newborn factors that shape how feeding actually works for you.

It includes simple things like:

Mum
Boobs, nipples, experience, expectations and support

Birth
Due date, labour and any complications

Baby
Age, size, weight and feeding stamina

Oral cavity
Palate, tongue and cheek pads

These few elements alone create a distinct combination. Your combination.
Your MumBo.

And once you see it… feeding starts to make sense.

How the MumBo™ Came About

When I first started my career, I thought the best way to build a framework was by solving specific breastfeeding problems. If I could crack sore nips, for example, surely that would become the model. It felt logical — but everyone was so different that nothing applied universally.

But I began noticing patterns.

Why did so many mums feel that short, sharp pain when latching?
Why did mastitis show up in the same area again and again?
Why did some babies struggle in ways that didn’t match anything in the books?

The more families I saw, the more obvious it became that every mum and baby created their own unique combination. Like two puzzle pieces that sometimes clicked together beautifully… and sometimes didn’t at first.

I first called it the Mum and Baby Combination.
Then the mum and baby combo.
And one day, joking about celebrity name-blending, I said “MumBo”…
It made me laugh, and it stuck.

Once I started using the MumBo lens, everything changed.
Different combinations had their own predictable clusters of challenges.
A mum with inverted nipples and a fuller breast had different needs from a mum with large nipples and smaller breasts. Add a tiny baby into the mix and the pattern changed again.

It wasn’t random. It was combinational.

And that’s when feeding clarity truly began.

Why the MumBo™ Helps You Understand Breastfeeding More Clearly

Because once you know your MumBo, feeding behaviour stops feeling chaotic.

You stop thinking:
“Why is this happening?”
and start seeing the why immediately.

Your anatomy + your birth + your baby’s oral cavity + their size + their stamina →
creates the pattern behind the behaviour.

Pain makes sense.
Latch challenges make sense.
Short feeds, long feeds, fussy feeds… all make sense.

The MumBo doesn’t give you rules.
It gives you understanding.
And understanding turns into clarity, and clarity turns into confidence.

That’s why this blog exists.
Not to give you rigid answers, but to help you see your feeding story through a lens that actually belongs to you.

Thirty years and over fourteen thousand families later, I feel like I’ve finally built what I set out to create — a way for mums everywhere to make feeding make sense.

The MumBo is now becoming part of everyday breastfeeding language, and it’s so much fun to watch it come alive in the real world.

So let me ask you…
What is your MumBo™?
And what is it helping you understand today?