Tips for supporting new parents with love and encouragement

​When I wrote last week about the importance of showing your love for your grandchildren’s parents, I had a reader ask for specific ideas, especially for those of us at a distance. This week, I want to share some of those ideas!

Don’t just say, “Let me know if I can help.” Very few people will ever take you up on such an offer, and your own children are often less likely to do so. Rather, suggest specific ways you could help. Of course, this can be tricky, because there is always the risk that your offer will be translated as a criticism. If you were to say, “I’d love to pay for a housecleaning service”, there is every chance that what your daughter-in-law will hear is “You are a terrible housekeeper.”

Instead, try saying something like this: “I’d love to do something to help lighten your load. Would you be interested in some help with laundry, or housekeeping, or maybe a meal service?” Or “I remember how hard it is to have any time to yourself and I’d love to do something to help you. Can I pay for a sitter/watch the baby so you can go get a massage?”

There are more ways to help new parents in this post, but make sure your offer to help is presented in a judgement-free way. “I stumbled on an article about family sleep consultants. Did you know they existed? Look into it and see if it’s something that might interest you—I’d be happy to help cover the cost. I wish I’d know about them when I had little ones!” This is more likely to succeed than, “It must be hard (judgement alert!) to have Harvey still waking up so much at night. Let me hire a sleep consultant to get him sorted out.”

​A few of you have asked us to recap the posts that covered the many ways that grandparents can help out if they can’t be there physically when a new baby arrives. Work schedules, finances, geography, ill health—not to mention a pandemic: there are many reasons why you may not be able to be on the scene to help the new parents. That doesn’t mean you can’t help out, though. Here’s a quick run down of the services we covered in past weeks:

Breastfeeding resources
Katie Clark, a Certified Lactation Educator through CAPPA, leads us through the services a lactation expert can provide to new mothers, and how grandparents can make sure parents get the support they need. Read the post.

Post-partum doula
Sheryl Cooksley of Family Tree Doula Services explains the emotional, physical, and instructional support that doulas can provide to new parents. She shares how grandparents can get involved in the process of finding a doula to join the new family support team. Read the post.

Family sleep consultant
A new mom shares her experience with Rest to Your Nest’s Mary Cantwell, a family sleep coach who crafted a plan to address the family sleep challenges. Because everything is easier with enough sleep! Read the post.

Meals, house cleaning, and laundry
Meal prep services abound, and there is one for every budget and palate. Home cleaning services are widely available, and having someone else mop the floor and scrub the shower is a true gift to new parents. Almost every town has a dry cleaners or laundromat that offers “wash, dry and fold”, and many offer pick up and delivery—making this service even more convenient. Read the post.

Are there any other services grandparents can help provide when they can’t be there in person? Please leave a comment if you know of any to add to the list!

If you pick up Camp Grandma expecting a book to help you plan a week of fun activities for your grandchildren, you may find it lacking. If you pick it up looking for ways to deepen your relationship with your grandchildren, pass along your gifts and values, or help them become successful adults, you won’t be disappointed.

Marianne Waggoner Day approaches time with her grandchildren as a retired corporate executive. The lessons she takes from her time in the business world are among the values she wants to pass along to her four grandchildren. She established Camp Grandma to “establish a structure where my four grandkids could come together and through shared experiences truly learn about each other and maybe more about themselves.”

She compares Camp Grandma to a corporate retreat for kids, where they learn about setting agendas and goals, giving presentations, and teamwork. And while she outlines the activities she does with her grandkids, she emphasizes that the book is not meant to be a blueprint for others. Instead, she hopes readers will find the inspiration to pass our own talents to our grandchildren.

This book will be most useful for grandparents who are lucky enough to care for their grandchildren on a regular basis, or who can carve out dedicated time with them during the summer. However, the ideas are valuable for all grandparents, and I recommend you get a copy today!

Have you read Camp Grandma? What did you think?

As an Amazon affiliate, I may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. Every penny helps cover the costs of running this site, so thank you for your support!

According to a UC Davis study, the vast majority of new moms report having trouble breastfeeding - around 92%. Through my own experience, the number one thing that helped when I was struggling to breastfeed my own children was support - especially from my own mother.

Breastfeeding and infant nutrition recommendations have changed over the years, and the prevalence of breastfeeding has increased as well. This may make it difficult for grandparents to know the best way to support their breastfed grandchild and his or her parents, especially if they aren’t familiar with breastfeeding.

To a new mom, just knowing she has someone in her corner cheering her on can make a bad day a little bit easier. Even if the new mom isn’t struggling with something specific, the early days of breastfeeding can be exhausting! Kind words go a long way.

How Can Grandparents Help?

First of all, be gentle - new moms have tons of hormones and emotions that are all over the place. Even if she’s doing something different than you did, try to be kind in your recommendations.

Be encouraging - simply having someone say, “I’m here for you” can make a world of difference. Saying something like, “Just give a bottle” or “Formula works just fine!” might not be the best approach. There may come a time when a mother needs to be told it’s okay to stop breastfeeding, but I would avoid jumping to that at the first sign of trouble. The vast majority of breastfeeding problems have solutions with the right support. 

Encourage the new mom to take a breastfeeding class and attend with them if they need you to. Online breastfeeding classes are affordable, can be taken at home, and are a good resource for grandparents who want to be as helpful as possible. 
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Educate yourself - there’s so much information available on breastfeeding these days. My favorite website is KellyMom.com for up-to-date information on pretty much every topic related to breastfeeding. I also have many useful articles on my websites, The Breastfeeding Mama and Clarks Condensed.  Breastfeeding Essentials is one of our mini classes that might be especially helpful for a grandparent.

Breastfeeding Experts
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Offer to find help - if you see a mother struggling, reaching out for help might be difficult for her. Being sleep deprived and overwhelmed, she might not even know where to start. Thankfully, there are a lot of lactation specialists available these days, so when you find you can’t offer the support you want, you can help direct a new mom in the right direction. It can be a little overwhelming to know exactly what each kind of lactation specialists does, so here is an overview of the three main categories:

When each of my first two grandchildren was born, I went to help my son and his wife for the first week or so. I did all the things my mother had done for me: keeping up with the laundry, fixing meals and filling the freezer, sweeping floors and doing dishes. My third grandchild, however, arrived just days before the nation shut down because of Covid-19—and all the help I wanted to give was impossible.
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Luckily, I had visited the month before and the freezer was full for the first couple of weeks after the baby arrived. But as time has worn on, I’ve looked for ways to help without actually being there. If you can’t be where help is needed, there are a variety of services that can fill in for you. Read on for some services you can offer to arrange if your grandbaby’s parents are open to them. 

Not so long ago, grandparents were allowed inside the hospitals, birth centers or homes where their latest grandbaby (or babies) was being born. Not now.

Grandparents could fly across the country without hesitation and race in to see the new family all in the same day. Not now.

Grandparents were retired, empty nesters with unlimited time on their hands to provide endless joyful hours providing care to the new family. Not now.

Although grandparents had to be very cautious, especially during flu season, they did not have to follow the protocols that are becoming the new normal during this pandemic. Washing hands and using hand sanitizer has always been a requirement to be around new babies, but donning masks, self-isolation, even quarantining are all present-day necessities for new grandparents. These obstacles may leave grandparents feeling helpless and angry.

They wanted to cook meals and fold those cute tiny baby clothes and HOLD THEIR GRANDBABY. They wanted to guide the new parents using the knowledge they gathered in their Grandparent Bootcamp and from a lifetime of caring for children and babies. They took the time to get up-to-date and learn all about the mountains of baby gear, new parenting philosophies and grandparent etiquette. They had planned on doing the night shift and making sure the new parents were well prepared to be on their own. They were ready to be the best grandparents (and parents) EVER.

This was not how it was supposed to be!
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This was not what they had planned.