At New Mom School, we’re huge advocates for all that a postpartum doula can bring to the experience for new families.

After all, when parents are supported and nurtured, they feel empowered, which leads to immense joy with life’s most treasured gift…our babies!

It is often a big adjustment in family life when a newborn enters the family dynamic. By offering non-medical care and spiritual support to new parents, a postpartum doula can often be the difference between success or struggle.

BUT WHAT IS A DOULA?

Postpartum doulas are professionals who provide physical, emotional, and informational support to new parents in the weeks and months after birth. They are there to help in any way they can with postpartum care. Think breastfeeding advice and help, newborn care, self-care, and household management.

Check out some of the ways that a postpartum doula can help a new mom, and see if its the right fit for you:

Let’s face it, we moms barely have time to pursue any interests outside the core family functions and the luxury of reading a book cover to cover might be a thing of the past. That’s why audiobook apps like Audible are so good.

Here are my Top 2 recommendations for parenting books you’ll want to listen to. You can listen in bed, while you fold the laundry or pump/feed; wherever you can! Just pop your earphones in and listen as the pages unfold.

Recommended read:

The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children by Dr. Ross W. Greene.

Every mom, no matter how old her child, should listen to this on Audible. It’s 2.5 hours and can be listened to in sections if you need it. The best part about listening to it is the vignettes you hear of parents talking to their children. They are so relatable and easy to replicate.

Your newborn is a precious addition to the world but also requires an adjustment to your daily schedule. Here are some essential tips that should help.

1. Don’t try and force a schedule.

Infants are demanding but that should be expected. Though you may desire a certain schedule of your own, do your best not to force a schedule on your newborn. It can take weeks, sometimes months, to know your baby’s needs. Go easy on yourself and give it time to learn what they’re telling you.

Let your baby eat whenever he or she wants without applying a regular timetable. Before you know it, you’ll be in a nice rhythm. You can expect that your infant may require to eat more often than you think, especially during the first month or so.

Original Article by Hayley Goldberg, LMFT via Heart of Connecting

One of the most important jobs we have as parents is to nurture the development of skills in our children. Through our years of parenting we want to instill healthy like skills and characteristics in our kids. For our children to one day become healthy and well-balanced adults means we need to look at our whole child and support all their development needs rather than focusing on a few isolated skills.

This whole-child approach requires us to focus on building skills in six important areas of development – language, communication and literacy, gross and fine motor skills, creativity, academic skills, spirituality, and social-emotional skills.

There are few things regarding my daughter that give me anxiety as much as developmental milestones. Why, though? Why did I worry so much about when she was able to lift her head, when she would roll over, or when she sat unassisted? She ended up doing all those things, at one point or another. And why do I worry now that she hasn’t started crawling and is 7 months old, and over-analyze the way she uses her hands and how she plays with her toys?