Our Services
Sleep deprivation can affect every aspect of your life: your mood, your cognitive ability, your appetite, your stress level, even your milk supply, and of course the supply of energy you want and need to nurture and enjoy your new baby.
Postpartum Overnight Care
We already know that having a newborn means frequent nighttime feedings and often many additional hours of pacing, rocking, or bouncing to get baby back to sleep. Even a sleeping baby can keep new parents awake, because the hyper-alert parent brain is programmed to hear every little gurgle, grunt, and squeak, making restful deep sleep nearly impossible.
Sleep deprivation can affect every aspect of your life: your mood, your cognitive ability, your appetite, your stress level, even your milk supply, and of course the supply of energy you want and need to nurture and enjoy your new baby. Impaired sleep can even tip some parents into postpartum anxiety or depression, so good rest is arguably one of the most important elements of staying both emotionally and physically healthy as a new parent.
Our postpartum overnight care is designed to help you get the sleep you need to stay healthy and happy!
More specifically, overnight care includes all infant care while parents catch up on precious sleep, as well as maternal care and breastfeeding support. Breastfeeding parents may choose to have their overnight doula bottle-feed their baby or may opt to nurse overnight while the doula does everything else: diapering, swaddling, burping and comforting so that the breastfeeding parent can go right back to sleep feeling fully confident that their little one is in safe and competent hands.
Overnight care can be especially helpful when the mother has had a cesarean section, a difficult pregnancy or a traumatic birth experience, or in the case where there are specific mental health concerns, maternal or infant sleep challenges, newborn adoption, or in single-parent families. For all families, overnight care can be particularly important when one or both parents are returning to work, or simply for folks who absolutely know they need a good night’s sleep to be a functional human.
We would love to talk to you about all of this and more - let the Seattle Night Doulas take the nighttime shift so you and your partner can get some sleep!
Sleep Coaching
By 4-6 months of age, most babies are capable of sleeping for long stretches overnight or even through the night. If your baby is waking frequently, we can help you troubleshoot and solve many common infant sleep issues. We offer comprehensive (hands-on) overnight infant sleep independence training in your home, while you catch up on sleep.
Sleep independence doesn’t always just happen. We have all known well-rested parents that happily report that their baby is sleeping through the night. This is not common, however. While some babies are naturally “good sleepers,” most babies need a little (or big) nudge to help them become good independent sleepers.
How do we accomplish this? Well, first, we have an information gathering session with your family to find out what your baby’s schedule and sleep (or lack thereof) situation is currently; look for trouble spots, and then find out what your family’s top concerns and goals are. Next, we work with your family to help you understand the possible cause of your baby’s sleep issues (i.e. frequent overnight feedings, accustomed to being held while sleeping, pacifier or breast dependency, separation anxiety) and create a plan with you to solve them. By the time most families are seeking sleep training support, they themselves are too exhausted to put a new nighttime sleep plan into action on their own. So, while you will be doing some guided schedule and sleep modifications with your baby throughout the day, we will come overnight to work on these new skills with your baby while you sleep. How great is that?