Wellness and Parenting Education for Growing Families
Welcoming a new baby is a wonderful and joyful experience, but it is often accompanied by strong negative emotions as well – stress, uncertainty, loneliness, disorientation . . . Becoming a parent is a major transition that often brings on identity questions and tests relationships.
Breathing Space supports families during the transformative time of pregnancy, birth, and early childhood with evidenced-based education and advice.
Our workshops and support circles offer parents a safe place to learn about caring for baby and themselves. Our individual support services offer one-on-one support through the birth and early parenting period.
Studies have shown that prenatal preparation helps parents feel confident and relaxed in the postnatal period. Our classes cover best practices and lots of techniques and ideas for baby care, breastfeeding, and more:
Beyond the Bump – Preparing for Baby – our prenatal parent education 4-class series covers all the basics of breastfeeding, sleep, baby care, and postpartum recovery
Prenatal Yoga – this weekly supports strength and fitness and may ease discomforts of pregnancy with modified yoga poses, breathwork and relaxation
Private Classes – Our postpartum doula and lactation team can customize private classes for breastfeeding, baby care, and more . . .
- Preparing to Breastfeed – A prenatal lactation consult is a great way to get your individual questions answered as a complement to our public classes or if our schedule doesn’t suit yours.
- Birth Partners Workshop – Comfort Measures for Pregnancy and Labor – This 3-hour workshop covers comfort measures and communication techniques for couples.
- Prenatal Massage Techniques – Learn self and partner massage techniques for pregnancy and beyond.
Breathing Space provides continuing parent education and helps build family support networks with classes including:
Baby Yoga & Play – a fun caregiver-child bonding activity with yoga-inspired movement, songs and rhymes, breathing exercises, postures and stretches for adults, and relaxation.
Infant Massage – learn a full-body massage routine shown to support baby’s growth and development along with family connection.
Baby Sign Language – learn to use American Sign Language vocabulary for early communication with babies and young children
Sometimes individual support can make all the difference. Our team is ready to support new parents through lactation consulting and doula services based on Capitol Hill and surrounding areas.
Lactation Consulting – one-on-one support from a skilled IBCLC can help breastfeeding parents avoid or overcome breastfeeding challenges, whether in the first days after delivery or many months into the breastfeeding relationship
Private Classes – Our team can customize prenatal education on breastfeeding or baby care or back-to-work consultations at your home
Affiliated Support Services – Several of our class instructors also offer private parent support services:
- Birth Doula Support – emotional, physical, and educational support from a professional doula can help families have a safe, memorable, and empowering birthing experience – Meet Katie.
- Postnatal Doula Services – evidenced based support with infant feeding, emotional and physical recovery from birth, mother–baby bonding, infant soothing, and basic newborn care can ease first days and weeks after bringing home a new baby – Meet Katie and Ariel.
- Sleep Support – developmentally sensitive, respectful, and responsive sleep education and coaching that considers the well being of the entire family. Meet Kim.
“I was so discouraged about breastfeeding and wondered if I could make it work .. Jen literally made all the difference, was so helpful, patient, not judgmental, and made every effort to ensure I felt comfortable.”
“I was frustrated and scared when I came in. My daughter had been losing weight, but I had thought she was getting nutrition. The lactation consultant gave me feedback that she wasn’t getting enough [milk] in a way that did not place any blame, in fact quite the opposite… such positive and empowering feedback. It helped me know that I was doing my best, and that I could properly feed my daughter. I can’t imagine a better experience!”
Still have questions?
Preparing for Baby Yoga & Play
This interactive, fun class for newborn to pre-crawling babies and their grownup(s) contains dozens of yoga-inspired movements, postures, songs, rhymes and activities designed to support baby’s development. Each class is filled with calming, nurturing ways to enhance...
Expanded Breathing Space Birth & Baby Programming
Jen and the original Breathing Space baby. Breathing Space started out back in 2009 as toddler family yoga classes offered by a single instructor. Over the years we've added camps and classes and expanded to a team of teachers. We are about to shift again and...
You Do Not Have to Explain Your Parenting Choices to Me
Parenting is hard. Caring for and guiding other humans is hard. For most decisions parents must make, there is no single right answer. Breast or bottle? Crib or co-sleep? Daycare or stay-at-home parent? Screens or no screens? These are just a few of the many (oh my...
What is Baby Yoga & Play?
Our class is a little different . . . . There are a lot of yoga studios advertising parent & baby classes, but it's sometimes hard to tell from the descriptions what will actually happen in class. Some instructors focus exclusively on mom. They keep the lights low...
Why I Don’t Encourage Pregnant Moms to Attend Breastfeeding Support Groups
Ok, the headline is a little misleading . . . I think it's good for pregnant moms to attend breastfeeding support groups, but not as their only breastfeeding preparation. As a leader of peer-to-peer breastfeeding support, I've seen a trend of childbirth educators...
New Parents Reading List
A really common question: What books do you recommend for new parents? Yeah, it's overwhelming. I don't even want to look up the number of parenting and baby books available on Amazon.com What's more, recent studies have shown that all this advice is not only...
Flickr photo credits: baby bump by Tatiana VbB, new family by beglen, momma and babe by terencenance, family with doula by greendoula - by creative commons license. All others by Jen Mueller/Breathing Space.
