First 12 Weeks Podcast Transcript: Introduction

 First 12 Weeks Podcast Transcript: Introduction 

Hello and welcome! I’m Laura Ellis and this is 40 Winks: a Newborn Care Specialist/Doula’s guide to your growing family. I’m a CACHE Certified Newborn Care Specialist, which required over 4,000 hands-on infant contact hours in a professional setting from the past 5 years. I’m also a certified Postpartum Doula through NAPS Doulas, which is a local doula group in Seattle. Additionally, I’m a Sleep Coach, and I’m training as a Full Spectrum Advocacy Doula. Prior to focusing my career on the perinatal period, I was an infant/toddler nanny for over 12 years. I love my field, and I’m so excited to share a piece of that w you now. 

In this series, it’s my goal to give parents a quick perspective about their baby each week for the first 12 weeks following birth. For each episode I will tell you a bit about normal feeding, sleep, growth, and development for that week, and I will have a more in-depth topic or tip in each episode to help you feel more confident in your parenting. 

To give you a quick overview, in Week 1, we will be discussing The nursery set up, safe sleep, and normalizing newborn sleep. 

In Week 2, we will discuss developmental milestones for the first month. 

In week 3, we will talk about infant nutrition, introducing a bottle/pacifier, and paced feeding. 

In week 4, we will talk about that 4 week check up that everyone seems to dread, with good reason since it usually results in exhausted parents and an over tired baby, which is why I will also discuss the 5 S’s and soothing a fussy baby. 

In week 5, we will discuss developmental milestones for month two. 

In week 6, we will talk about early learning, interactive play, tummy time, and music. 

In week 7, we will talk about The Purple Crying Curve. 

In week 8, we will talk about schedules and routines. 

In week 9, we will go over developmental milestones for month three. 

In week 10, we will talk about helping baby adjust to other caregivers. I’m sure many of you will be starting to transition back to work around this time and I want to give you some tips to help you feel more comfortable with this transition and to give you some tools to help you help your baby and caregiver as well. 

In week 11, we will ask ourselves, “ Am I spoiling my baby?” 

And in week 12, our last week in this series, we will talk about phasing out the swaddle and other sleep tools. 

So, that it! I’m really excited to get you started.