From the moment you find out you’re expecting, there’s a lot of excitement. But there’s also a lot of: “How are we going to do it?” You may live in a concrete jungle or its periphery, but you don’t need to go at it alone.
In fact, from postpartum meal delivery services (check out Brooklyn-based Welcome Home) to new parent education classes and support groups aplenty at area hospitals (NYU Langone and Northwell Health, to name two), there’s quite the range of offerings to clueless first-timers. Here are some of the standouts on offer.
For help and wisdom
I’m expecting my first baby in May and one of the first things my dearest friend told me was “hire a doula, because someone needs to take care of you, too.”
For those who don’t know, a doula is a nonmedical worker who supports women through childbirth. Birth doulas help you prepare for the birth and are present with you for the delivery. Meanwhile, after the baby is born, you can enlist the service of a postpartum doula.
“Daytime postpartum doulas provide a lot of educational and hands-on support,” explains Jen Mayer, founder of Baby Caravan, a Brooklyn-based doula collective that serves all five boroughs plus parts of the tristate area. The free matchmaking service includes more than 70 birth and postpartum doulas.
What can you expect from a doula? Mayer shared the example of Baby Caravan member Allie Blanchard, a postpartum doula working with a client in the early days of new parenthood.
“The baby came early, and the parents were overwhelmed and exhausted in those first days home from the hospital,” she said. “In her first visit, Allie helped make a feeding plan for the baby, made them some soup and protein bites while wearing the baby and the parents took a nap.”
Overnight postpartum doulas primarily focus on infant care, “so that parents can get as much sleep as possible.” Price ranges from $40 to $85 per hour. Doula services may be available free for qualifying New Yorkers or covered by employee benefit programs.
For the overwhelmed
You don’t need to relocate to Paris anymore to experience the best of European parenting practices firsthand.
Launched by French-Dutch founder Andrea Grunnekemeijer in 2024, Bonjour Parenthood serves all five boroughs in New York City with its European-inspired postnatal care and support program.
Grunnekemeijer was drawn to the line of work when she welcomed her daughter during the COVID-19 pandemic and observed a lack of support for new parents in NYC. She looked to the esteemed Dutch services for newborn mothers and their babies, called Kraamzorg, where postnatal care is provided to new mothers for 10 days postpartum.
To add in some French wisdom, Grunnekemeijer teamed up with Valerie Boulet to build a service to ease the transition to new parenthood.
The program centers around a three-phase approach, starting with a two-hour postpartum preparation call during the final trimester of pregnancy. Next, during the in-home phase, family care specialists come to your home for hands-on support, with an emphasis on the mom’s recovery.
For the last phase, Bonjour Parenthood is at the ready with a helpful parenthood handbook, a month of virtual support and expert email advice on your baby’s milestones for the first year.
Currently, the company offers the Comfort Care daytime package (six four-hour visits within the first two weeks after childbirth with the option to extend or combine with nighttime support, a session with their wellness coach and nutritious meals for both parents from a delivery service) and the Essential Nights packages, which include two four-hour daytime visits, along with a choice of 10, 25, or 40 nights of support. Rates start at $2,650.
For the baby who won’t sleep
Natalie Nevares, founder of Mommywise, has been helping new parents sleep train their newborns since 2010. Based on the Lower East Side, the calling is personal for Nevares.
“I had a grueling introduction to parenthood,” she said. “Birth trauma, a painful recovery, challenges with breastfeeding and sleep deprivation led to a crippling case of postpartum depression which didn’t get diagnosed until I had a toddler and baby two years apart. Although I got my babies sleeping through the night between 8 and 12 weeks old, I didn’t sleep for three years.”
Nevares finally felt like herself again and decided to dedicate her life to helping new parents in crisis.
These days, Nevares and her team of six other expert sleep consultants are veritable sleep whisperers, serving new parents in-person all over the country.
“We get exhausted, fussy babies with bags under their eyes sleeping through the night in three to five days,” Nevares said. “We help parents learn to read their baby’s cues, feel more confident in their parenting and return to work at full capacity.”
Speaking of the back-to-work shuffle, Elodie Dupuy, founding partner of the Manhattan-based hedge fund Full In Partners, loved Mommywise so much that she now offers it as a corporate benefit for her employees.
“As a mom who had to go back to a demanding job in finance, just four months postpartum with a baby getting up every 90 minutes, I suffered a lot trying to execute at my highest functioning self on interrupted, low-quality sleep,” Dupuy said. “It was obvious to me that investing in sleep training for returning employees — whether moms or dads — was a very high ROI benefit that just made sense.”
Packages are priced from $7,950 and include three to five days and nights of in-home sleep training support with a Mommywise coach and four weeks of unlimited guidance.
For the overloaded
Think of this new nationwide subscription service from Peacock Parent as a matchmaker for busy parents.
Proxy by Peacock Parent starts at $60 per month, and provides vetted help for personal tasks and household chores.
Peacock Parent founder and CEO Christine Landis, of San Diego, was inspired to launch Proxy — new for 2025 — after she kept hearing the same thing from busy parents: “I know I need help, but I don’t have time to figure out what to delegate or who to trust.”
In essence, Proxy strives to outsource your mental load by delegating the tasks you dread doing, “whether it’s finding a last-minute babysitter, thinking through meal planning for the week, booking a handyman or having a hairstylist or yoga instructor come to your home (because it’s too hard to get out the door with a newborn!),” Landis said. “Instead of parents spending hours researching and managing logistics, we source the best solutions.”
They also offer transparent pricing for the services provided.
Peacock Parent suggest hiring a meal prep chef (8 hours per week, $1,920 per month), remote family assistant (8 hours per month, $320 per month) and laundry service (two loads per week, $80 per month).