By Caryn Rousseau
With twins on the way, Stacey Blackmar and her husband were preparing to be first-time parents when they started researching baby products. They found the choices and information available bewildering.
"It was overwhelming. I was looking at prams," said Blackmar, 31, a high school maths teacher who lives in Chicago. "Everybody has different opinions."
Their solution was to hire Joelle Gowryluk-Knapp, who runs Nest Help, a baby planning service that helps where a midwife or nanny cannot, with services like nursery planning and home babyproofing to shopping for maternity clothes.
Between 60 and 70 baby planners had started offering services in the US in the past few years, said Melissa Moog, president of the National Baby Planner Association, who runs Itsabelly Baby Planners in Portland, Oregon.
The goal was "to basically reduce the overwhelming feelings of stress and save time so you can spend quality time on what matters to you," Moog said. "If what's important to you is going to birthing classes instead of doing research on car seats, I can do that for you."
Baby planners will offer researched recommendations on baby products such as prams and cribs, and make referrals to and do interviews with possible nannies and midwives.
Many clients were busy professional women or pregnant women who lived far away from their families, Moog said. Baby planners charged 224 la carte rates from about $50 (R376) to $150 an hour, or packages which could cost several hundred to several thousand dollars, she said.
The Blackmars have hired Gowryluk-Knapp to plan their baby registries, help set up their nursery and choose products that will make their home environmentally friendly before the babies arrive.
Gowryluk-Knapp researches products and notes features that will fit her clients' lifestyles. For example, she recommends the Blackmars buy a pram with a hand-brake because they have a large dog.
"I actually consider myself a mommy coach," said Gowryluk-Knapp, a former nanny. "I never take the decisions away. I coach the mom to make good choices."
New mother Amy Blair, 43, a senior vice-president of human resources at Liberty Global in Denver, said she and her husband hired April Beach of Sweet Pea Baby Planners to save time before their daughter was born in May.
"Both my husband and I have intense professional jobs," Blair said. "A lot of the things April does you can do yourself, but it takes a lot of time and we just did not have it. This is a huge industry, and you can get sucked into all kinds of things. April gave us advice only on the specific things we needed."
Beach said she could be on call in the weeks near a client's due date to perform simple chores, like making sure their bags were packed or installing car seats. She said she wanted to enhance maternity for a mother.
"A mother today looks a lot different from a mother 15 years ago," Beach said. "She is powerful. She is strong. She is knowledgeable. Women today know it's okay to ask for help. That's a victory for all of us."
But hiring baby planners may not only be a question of asking for help. Kerrie Smedley, a developmental psychologist and associate professor at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania, said it may be an example of parents struggling to meet society's expectations.
"We have an expert society or an expert culture where we really don't trust that we can do anything without researching it and getting help - you can't really trust any of your own instincts; you need an expert."
There also could be opposite pressure from the long-held idea that parents should want to do everything for their children, said Parenting magazine senior editor Christina Vercelletto.
"Baby planners can alleviate stress and be useful to parents who can afford the services, but there are plenty of other good resources available, such as advice from friends and family, for parents who cannot pay for extra help. Especially in this economy, this is a luxury service. If this is something you feel is going to put a strain on your budget, absolutely there's no reason to feel it's a must-do."
Moog said the economic downturn had had some baby planners losing would-be clients, and stressed that baby planners would work with clients from any budget. "It's not just for your super-rich," Moog said.
For the Blackmars, having expert advice from a baby planner means peace of mind. "It's a smooth transition, less stressed and relaxing," Stacey Blackmar said. "I want to make sure all my Ts are crossed and my Is are dotted." - Sapa-AP