Bay Area Night Doulas

I used Ruby Neal (rubydoula [at] gmail.com) as my postpartum doula and she is AMAZING.  This was for my second child and the difference in my experience was night and day.  She made it so easy and really optimized the amount of rest I was getting at night.  She was there the day I came home from the hospital and we hired her for 3 months.  In that time she got my baby sleeping through the night in the bassinet. It was amazing compared to my first experience and I had relatively 'easy' babies in the scheme of things.  If my baby had feeding challenges or reflux or any of the things that make the newborn phase extra hard, it would have been even more vital to have her there.  

The nights as a new mom are extremely lonely and can be super trying, especially for your first time. Having a doula present made such a huge difference for my mental health.   Most night doulas are ~$50/hr or so. and we did have her there for 8 hours.  It was worth every penny and we don't regret it at all.  We did hire her 5 days a week, which was a lot.  Granted, a friend of mine hired a different one only 2-3 days a week and she wished she could have had her there more because her baby struggled to sleep in the bassinet and just wanted to be held. 

Hi!  Congratulations on your upcoming arrival!

We used a postpartum doula for ~8 weeks with both our kids and it was a lifesaver for our family.

We first worked with an agency-bay are night doulas. We got a great match but the fees were higher (around $40-$50 or more per hour). The second time around, we worked with our same doula directly and costs were $40/hour.  If you happen to have Carrot Fetility coverage, some plans also cover post partum doula services for the first 6 weeks if you work with a credentialed doula.

For baby #2, we did 10pm-7am 4 days a week for 6 weeks starting the night we came home from the hospital and then tapered down to 3 then 2 days a week once the baby was only waking up 1 time a night. We liked knowing we had only 1 sleepless night at a time and 9 hr at a time allowed us to ensure we both got 8 hr sleep then could still have time to shower/eat in the morning.

Hope this helps

Sarah

1. I really liked Sylvia Mumwi, who we used with our second baby. I have written a recommendation about her before on BPN. She's about $50/hr which seemed market rate in the research I did. 
2. We'd planned to have her 3 nights/week for the first ~10 weeks but within one night, we decided we wanted her as much as possible for the first couple of weeks (I think we did 6 nights/week for the first 2 weeks). In part, this was because we also had a toddler and so we felt like we needed to be better rested during the days. Ultimately I liked it being a few days a week but for longer because it felt like as long as I had one good nights sleep every 2 nights, I would be OK. But as with all things, this is totally personal/individual to you based on how you fare without sleep, what your days will look like, etc. We did 10pm-6am, which felt like her standard and worked for us because it didn't seem like we'd be able to go to bed much earlier or sleep in much later given our toddler's schedule plus the fact that we wanted some time together in the evenings. At 6am, the baby would often continue sleeping for at least another hour, sometimes longer, so it wouldn't have helped to have Sylvia there longer. The single biggest factor is breastfeeding which kind of limits when you can go to sleep and how much value you get out of the night nurse given that you still wake up. I quickly transitioned to pumping overnight rather than breastfeeding which made my nights SO much better (~10 min pumping on my own schedule, vs ~40 min breastfeeding on the baby's schedule). Feel free to DM me any additional questions.

We did three nights a week for 6 weeks.  If I could have afforded it I would have done 5 nights!  My first was a pretty good sleeper and was doing some longer stretched by 6 weeks (we didn't have a night nanny for her since it was during COVID),so I thought that would be a good amount of time, but my second was a horrible sleeper!  By 6 weeks he was still waking up every ~3 hours. I was really hoping we would have the option of extending a little if needed, but unfortunately the next family our nanny was booked to help had their baby early.  I wanted to cry on her last day.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, our friends booked a night nanny 5 days a week for 3 months and their baby was a unicorn sleeper, so it ended up being total overkill.  You just never know!

I would spread the care out for at least 6 weeks, but 8 would be great.  I'm not sure I would have needed more help up front since the lack of sleep felt cummulative and it might start catching up to you after a few weeks.  I think 8 hours is enough per night.  The average rate seems to be around $50/hour.  Higher rates if you go through an agency.

I loved our night nanny.  Her name is Rose Blandesi and her phone number is 510-325-8474.  She was amazing with our baby and has a really calming presence which was much appreciated during such a crazy time! 

Hi there - we worked with two fabulous night doulas for our second and it was a night and day different experience compared to our night doula experience with our first. 

Unfortunately, in my experience and in speaking with a few friends, a lot of night doulas can be unreliable and that can be tough as a postpartum new mom who is relying on the sleep! FWIW, we had a bad experience with both of the night doulas found through Bay Area Night Doulas and would not recommend (especially given the high referral cost now). They were both super flakey, would cancel last minute, double booked us, etc. 

I would, however, highly recommend both Marcia Brito (doulamarciabrito [at] gmail.com (doulamarciabrito[at]gmail[dot]com)) and Amber Pirker (amber.pirker [at] gmail.com). Both were incredibly trustworthy, professional and Covid-conscious (we had a preemie so wanted to be extra careful).  We had help between the two of them for 5 nights per week for about 10 weeks and it was a game changer!

Hope this helps!

I don't have anything new to add in terms of how amazing having a postpartum night doula is, but I did want to say that the rates I was quoted from everyone I interviewed were more in the $55-60 an hour range. I interviewed at least 5 people (doulas got snapped up while I was in the interview process) and no one quoted me less than $55. The doula I hired charges $60 an hour. It's very expensive, but worth it to me, because my partner gets zero leave (he works in a very small firm). For us it was pay for care so he can sleep through the whole night or he takes unpaid time off and we chose to go with the doula. We hired her 4 nights a week for the first two weeks and will drop to 3 night a week for the next four to six weeks. My doula has also been really helpful with breastfeeding issues and referred me to a great lactation consultant.