Nesting: A 4th Trimester Planning Workshop

The 4th trimester is the three months immediately after birth and adoption where the parents and baby(ies) need intense care. This is a critical time of healing and bonding. While it requires intense work, it also requires intense rest, which can be a hard balance to find. In this workshop we will develop practical steps and a flexible plan to support you and your family in this stage.

Let’s set you, your baby, and your family up to thrive in this delicate time. The amount of learning and growing you and your baby are doing during this time is quite frankly, mindblowing. It can be overwhelming, earth-shaking, unsettling. It can also be empowering, grounding, and fulfilling - with the right support.

Nesting is a workshop to help you plan for the postpartum time. Using Kestrel Gates’ workbook Build Your Nest (provided), we will explore:

• What is the 4th trimester? What are some postpartum traditions? What are the basic needs during this time?

• The Who, What, and Hows of your village - building a strong support system involves getting specific about who you can ask to do what, and how to ask. This way you can more easily get the help you need.

• Recovery aspects - some of the physical, mental, emotional, and relational needs

• Money - the 4th trimester is often a time of shifting financial habits where the person(s) spending the most amount of money is bringing in the least. We will touch on important conversations to have ahead of this time.

• Intimacy/sex - there are many reasons why intimacy needs & desires change during this time, for all adults. Hormones, pelvic floor changes, & feeling ‘touched out’, to name a few. We will explore some of these, discuss tips on how to talk about these changes with your partner, and ideas on how to deal with them. 

• Baby blues vs PMAD - how to tell the difference and how to get help

• Feeding baby

• Back to work 

• Tips for multiples, older children, longer physical recoveries, NICU stays, and surprises

• Structuring a 4th trimester plan

• You will also receive a Resource list of local providers and online resources

Nesting is currently moving to an online course platform!

Stay tuned for more info and be sure to sign up on our email list to get the latest.

If a self-paced online course isn’t your thing, we can meet privately in-person or virtually, alone or with your partner(s)/support person(s). Reach out for more info or purchase below!

Becoming: A New Mom Group

You did it! At the very moment your baby was born, so were you. Learning, changing, growing, & healing right alongside your infant is simultaneously magical and painful. The focus of this group is to nurture + hold the new mom, be in community together, build nurturing relationships, explore fears, challenges, and joys, get support and wisdom, therapeutically process the birth, and strengthen intuition.

Especially for mamas and babies in their 4th trimester, and also open to babies up to 6 months old. This group is limited to 5 mamas with their babies. Each group is ‘closed’ meaning it will be the same mamas & babies each week to create supportive bonds that often continue for years-to-come. We will meet for 2 hours once every week for 6 weeks. We will explore all that this transition brings up, including (but certainly not limited to): fears, coping skills, mental health, body image, infant behaviors, shifting relationships. We will have a craniosacral therapist in one session and intentional time for processing and healing of your birth story. Nourishing, warming teas and foods will be provided. The cost is $300.

Upcoming Dates:

Tuesdays 10:30am - 12:30pm

January 17 - February 28, 2023

Let me know if you are interested in joining a Becoming group but do not see a start date that works for you. In respect of babies arriving on their own schedules and the wide variety of timelines for venturing out of the postpartum nest, group dates can often be shifted.

*I use mama as a non-gendered term eliciting the feminine in all of us. Regardless of gender identity & expression, we all have both feminine & masculine energy and qualities. All are welcome in these groups and in my practice. Please let me know which words feel right for you. I also use the term couple as a loose label. Your ‘couple’ may contain more than 2 people and/or might be comprised of non-romantic support person(s). I’m here for all of it! Please reach out if you have any questions or concerns about how you will fit in, be supported and cared for in these groups.