Didcot Baby Monday (360G-OCF-A504198)

Didcot Baby Monday addresses the following areas of need. Social Isolation: The transition into parenthood can feel very isolating and Didcot Baby Monday seeks to help combat this by providing an open access, welcoming space for new parents to meet, socialise and share experiences. This also gives an opportunity to form connections that extend beyond our group. We see attendees go on to meet socially at other times in the week and after their babies outgrow the group. This is especially important in our local area which has seen significant housing development in recent years. People are increasingly moving to Didcot with little extended family support close at hand. Didcot used to have three children’s centres which are now closed. These all held very popular ‘bump to baby’ sessions. As a dedicated baby group, DBM is important to the local community because, although there are other groups catering for wider age ranges, these are usually more geared towards toddlers and not always suitable for very young babies. Busy toddler groups can be particularly daunting to first time mums and those with premature babies or twins. The location of our venue is also fairly central and within walking distance from most of Didcot (including the Great Western Park development), as well as having good amount of parking on site. Early Years Development: We provide a selection of baby toys for parents to interact with their babies and occasionally run special sessions (e.g. at Christmas) with a craft activity or music. Babies of all ages can benefit from social interaction and stimulation of being with others, but it is especially lovely to see them start to interact with each other as they grow older; smiling and reaching out to touch each other. We also provide information on other groups and activities for babies running in our local area, such as music and baby massage. Breastfeeding Support: For many families, one of the most stressful experiences of having a new baby is attempting to establish breastfeeding. A key attraction of what our group offers is open access to good quality professional breastfeeding advice in an emotionally supportive, community based forum. To compliment hiring a professional breastfeeding specialist, some of our volunteer mums are trained (or currently training) as breastfeeding peer supporters with the Association of Breastfeeding Mothers. We also have La Leche League fact-sheets available and can signpost parents to sources of online information and support, such as Oxfordshire Breastfeeding Support. Some families require support for more complex issues or over a longer period time and our breastfeeding consultant is able to signpost them to where to find additional help where necessary, such as tongue tie specialists. We regularly see new mums with babies less than a week old seeking feeding support. There have been occasions when our breastfeeding counsellor has been able to flag quickly to the local midwife team that additional or urgent support is required for mums with newborn babies struggling to establish breastfeeding. Community Links: We have good links with local health visitors and midwives, who tell us they actively recommend our group to new parents (new attendees each week tell us also this is commonly how they are finding our group). They tell us there is no group offering the same to parents/carers with new babies in the area, and we are a valuable resource for the community that meets a consistent need for these local parents and their babies. A health visitor staff nurse attends most sessions and is on hand to provide advice and information to parents if required, for example mums with older babies often ask for advice on weaning onto solid food. In April 2018 we secured partial funding for a two year period from Oxfordshire County Council under the "transition fund for open access children's services", which is aimed at community groups filling gaps in provision left by the closure of the county's children's centres. However, this remit of this grant scheme was not able to meet the cost of providing infant feeding support. Therefore we are seeking funding from OCF specifically to be able to continue to hire a qualified breastfeeding consultant on a weekly basis and provide this vital source of support to new parents. Even though this is specific part of what our group offers, it is a fundamental aspect of what attracts parents to our group. Many who initially attend seeking breastfeeding support with their newborn continue to attend for the social aspects which leads them to benefit is other ways - reducing social isolation, early years development. We were previously awarded £1,500 from OCF in June 2017, which we used for the same purpose.