When you’re breastfeeding during the newborn stage, the nursing sessions almost feel constant. With 8-12 feeds a day on average, you spend a lot of time feeding your sweet baby. In our work as postpartum doulas, we find it’s super helpful to create a simple basket of essentials that is portable and easy to grab with one hand. Here’s our go to guide for creating a Breastfeeding Basket!
The Myth of Modern Day Motherhood
Doulas of Orange County has a simple mission; to walk alongside of parents with steadfast support during the most monumental, exhausting, transformative and joyful experience of their lives; welcoming a baby to the world. The fertility journey, the pregnancy, the birth and bringing a newborn home are intense and surreal.
The books don’t fully prepare you, friends can overwhelm you, media can terrify you and your well meaning family can often judge your choices.
At Doulas of OC we believe that you shouldn’t just survive this time, but that you should thrive in parenthood.
Daylight Savings Time: Tips to "Spring Forward"
As the time change approaches, more and more parents are reaching out to us to chat about how to get their baby or toddler to easily adjust to “springing forward.” It’s my opinion that this is the easier of the two time changes, especially when you have kiddos! Despite it being easier than “falling back”, it can still be helpful to have a plan in place to minimize disruptions and keep your day-to-day schedule flowing nicely.
These are general tips that will work for most families with babies 4+ months through adolescence. If you’re interested in a personalized sleep assessment with clear goals to stick to as we approach the time change, you can schedule a 90-minute video call with me here to assess your baby’s sleep.
2018: The Year of Change
If you had asked us one year ago what things would look like for Doulas of Orange County at the end of 2018, our vision would have been very different than our current reality. And while our vision came to fruition in many ways, something interesting happened towards the end of this year that changed the course of our business and in such an unexpected way!
At the end of 2017 we were deep in preparations for our Grand Re-Opening in Irvine. We were expanding our class calendar, adding new members to our team and were focused on big plans for the year. As always, we’ve have had big goals, lots of ideas, and great passion moving us forward.
2018 was a stellar year in so many ways!
The Pantry: Postpartum Pasta Salad
I really love cooking for postpartum clients - generally I make light and meals. This way I’m not spending the entire postpartum visit in the kitchen and can still help with breastfeeding, newborn care, and anything else the new parents need. Postpartum nutrition is incredibly important, especially for the first several months. Your body goes through a huge transition after giving birth and nourishing it with healthy, nutritious, and soul-filling foods goes a long way in supporting your postpartum recovery.