4 INVALUABLE RESOURCES FOR PARENTS OF NEWBORNS!

There is little in life more intimidating than taking home your newborn human for the first time.  By yourself.

  …They’re seriously going to trust us with her?  

… Don’t we need to be more qualified?

… I can’t believe they require a test to get a driver’s license, but not for this.

I remember thinking these exact thoughts fourteen years ago!  And now, as a newborn photographer meeting brand new parents every week, I can still see this uncertainty and overwhelm ALL. THE. TIME.  

But one thing many new parents don’t know is that there are resources  in nearly EVERY community whose sole purpose is to ensure babies and children have the very best start in life.  And much of their work involves helping not just babies, but their PARENTS.  And the best thing about these resources?  Most of them are FREE!  My own experience as a new mother, as well as my previous experience working at a non-profit for children & families, made me familiar with many of these services. And you don’t necessarily need to be in a certain income bracket to qualify- you simply have to ASK!

So, based on my own experiences, and those of people I know, I’ve made this list of 4 Invaluable Resources for parents of newborns- most of which you may never had heard of!

LACTATION CONSULTANTS

You may be surprised to know that most hospitals have a full-time lactation consultant on their staff.  Yup.  Full-time!  Why?  Because breastfeeding is not always easy, y’all.  For some people it is- which is wonderful!  But for others (myself included) it’s really, really hard. 

That’s not to scare new moms off from breastfeeding. On the contrary! (I struggled and struggled but after several weeks of working with a LC finally had success!)  I just think it’s important to know that experiencing difficulty doesn’t mean you can’t do it, it just means you’ve gotta work through some issues before it becomes second nature.  It could be issues with baby’s latch, your milk supply, sore or cracked nipples, engorgement, mastitis… the lovely list of potential mammary problems goes on!  😛 

Well, lactation consultants help you through ALL those issues, concerns, and struggles you face so you can eventually breastfeed successfully. So, if you’re having trouble breastfeeding- ANY trouble at all- reach out to your hospital’s lactation consultant- their job is to help!

POST-PARTUM DOULAS

We hired a doula for our son’s birth.  If you’re unfamiliar with doulas, I could describe one all-to-simply as: A labor and childbirth coach. 

A more fitting definition, however, might be: An angel and cheerleader sent from God to help you successfully birth a small human out of a very small opening in your body. Possibly without painkillers.   

Now Postpartum Doulas are a similarly angelic figures who assist parents in the often difficult and overwhelming postpartum period. (Yes! Someone to help you when you have no idea what you’re doing!) And to give a more thorough description of all a postpartum doula does, I googled it for you! 

Postpartum doulas provide families information and support on infant feeding, emotional and physical recovery from childbirth, infant soothing, and coping skills for new parents.  

Though many new parents have the blessing of their own parents to help them through this period, not everyone does- this is where a postpartum doula would truly be invaluable. 

Unfortunately, postpartum doulas are not a service that is provided free to families- they are typically hired privately by families.  However, they are just an incredible service to new parents, so I HAD to include them in this list!  

Postpartum doulas seem like such a God-send, I kinda want to hire one now.  Do you think 10 years postpartum is too long??

PARENTS AS TEACHERS

One of my favorite organizations to benefit families is Parents As Teachers– for a few reasons.  One: my mom was a Parent Educator with PAT for many years. Her job was to guide parents in the first three years of their baby’s life and help them to become their baby’s first (and most important) teacher).

In the short term: this benefited parents and helped them with challenges from nutrition and cognitive and motor development to behavior and discipline.  In the long term: it greatly improved the success of children in school!

PAT was one of the first things I signed up for when our daughter was born!  Now admittedly, having a mom who was a parent educator, and having worked as an early education consultant, much of what my own Parent Educator shared with me I already knew. But it didn’t matter. The support of my PE Brenda- actually visiting my home and talking with me- was a lifesaver at times. Not only did she support me and answer ALL of my questions, she connected me with resources that directly benefited our daughter.  

One of the most resources we received through PAT impacted our daughter’s life in a huge way.  When Lauren was nearing 2 years old, I’d been wondering if she was talking as much as she “should” be talking, and so our PE evaluated her speech- a routine check done by PEs for every child. When a simple questionnaire suggested that her speech appeared to be delayed, our PE was also able to perform a hearing evaluation right in our home!  Thankfully, her hearing was normal, though her expressive speech was not. To my surprise, we received a call the NEXT DAY from the Army Medical Center where she was born, to set up speech therapy for her. I didn’t even have to do anything! (A blessing for an already tired mother).

Long story short, she began receiving free early-intervention speech therapy services right away, and her speech shortly thereafter exploded, and she is (at the time this post was originally written) a 4th grader reading and writing at an 8th grade level. (!) Does her success in school have anything to do with the intervention she received from PAT?  YES! Absolutely, yes.

And if you’re thinking that you might not qualify for FREE services, think again. Most states have funding streams that are specifically geared toward young children (birth through three) and early intervention services are usually a part of that.  Even though my husband had a good salary with the DoD, we still would have struggled to afford private speech therapy on our own. But we didn’t even have to worry about it. It was all covered with early intervention services! It was truly a blessing. 

YOUR LOCAL FIRE DEPARTMENT

This last resource might seem like an odd one to include, but from my experience, they’re probably not utilized enough!

Before Lauren was born, I had already pored over dozens of books- trying to glean as much knowledge as I could about keeping a tiny human alive. Now, we knew the basics, of course. But I am, by nature, a worrier. So I even read the manuals to our baby gear- making sure that I didn’t miss anything important. 

So, when we did our duty as soon-to-be parents and took our car (with carseat installed) to our local fire department to have it inspected to ensure we properly installed it, we were sure they’d tell us, “Boy, you folks must have read all those books, because you nailed it!  No one ever comes here with their car seat properly installed. Well, you’ve broken that streak today: Congratulations!” 

Well, guess what? 

Even with my thorough preparedness and slight obsession with details, we still found out that we did NOT have our daughter’s car seat installed properly. 

😳 

And seriously, we were SURE we did!!!  In case you’re one of those parents (like us) who totally knew you did it right, let me describe our mistake: 

We knew the middle of the back seat was safest.  We knew all car seats must be rear-facing and properly leveled so that baby’s head doesn’t slump forward and increase risk of injury during a crash.  We also knew that the LATCH system in the car was easier to secure snugly than seatbelts. 

So we put the car seat- level and facing backward- in the back seat. We took the LATCH hooks, secured one to each anchor, and tightened as tight as humanly possibly.  

And yet the Firefighter who helped us quickly found our mistake:  Our back seat only had the LATCH system on the left and right rear seats- but not in the middle.  So, we’d actually used a LATCH anchor point from from the RIGHT SEAT to secure the right side of the base, and used the anchor from the LEFT SEAT to secure the left side. This meant the straps holding in her seat weren’t hooked perpendicularly to their anchor points- they were spread out further- allowing the seat to actually slide from side-to-side quite a bit!  A PROPER installation would have used the LATCH system on either the left or right seat, OR- his recommendation- using the seat belt to secure the seat in the middle.  

So, the moral of my story is: Firefighters undergo some insane number of hours of training JUST to be experts in car seat installation. It’s seriously that easy to do it wrong!!  So, use their expertise.  Again, it’s FREE!

And if you’re one of those who gets an A+ for perfect installation, Way to go!  If you’re shocked (like us) that even your seemingly perfect install wan’t completely safe, you’ll be SO thankful you had them inspect it.