u/cleffasong

Hey all! I recently finished my full spectrum training program and am now starting the process of getting my state certification. While I’m full spectrum trained and would like experience supporting birth and postpartum clients, I’ve been considering focusing on postpartum support and newborn care. As such, I’ve been looking into the Newborn Care Specialists Association’s certification process and their approved coursework.

Some side notes- My full spectrum training did have some information on newborn care as a part of postpartum support. Additionally, I have taken extra supplemental classes on breast feeding and newborn care at my local hospital. Also, I was a nanny for a few years, and I got a good bit of experience caring for newborns and assisting the parents with other things while in this role.

Of course, taking additional coursework in newborn care isn’t free (nor is it particularly inexpensive, in some cases) so I wanted to hear some opinions/experiences from other doulas. Has anyone here taken the extra steps to get their newborn care specialist certification on top of their doula training? Do you feel like the information in the course you chose differed substantially from what was already included in your doula training/prior experience in birth work/family support? Have you found that being able to add your NBCS certification to your resume has helped with booking clients?

Any advice or insight would be appreciated. Thank you in advance!! Hope you’re having a nice weekend :)

hey all! thanks in advance for reading

I’m a full-spectrum doula-in-training about to complete my training, and am starting to really focus on networking and business-building. however, i’m starting to feel a little intimidated by the idea of managing this with my full-time job. In my mind, I always pictured working that occasional doula work (say, 1-2 clients a month) would be my real passion while continuing to work my day job for the foreseeable future. Of course, turning this into a full-time career would be wonderful, but I live in an extremely high cost of living area and, in this economy, do not feel comfortable leaving my job anytime soon. For reference, my day job is administrative and about 90% work from home with occasional on-site days for events or team meetings. On-site days are usually scheduled well in advance. I’m very rarely asked to be on-site last minute. I plan to have a back-up doula for sure, but my major fear is heavily relying on my back-up and missing out on supporting my clients when they need me the most.

Okay context out of the way, here are all of my questions: Other doulas that have a separate full-time job- how do you manage? Do you use PTO to attend births? How do you schedule that when birth can be unpredictable? Do you just take a week or so off and hope that things go as planned? Or do you wait and just call in sick if something unexpected happens? Do you find that your stars align and your client just happens to give birth at night or outside of typical day job hours (I’ve seen a couple of people say this and I’m wondering how common that actually is lol)? How often have you had to use a backup doula if you could not get out of your work? Am I just massively overthinking?