“Go, Nora, go!” cheered Annie Powers as her two-month-old daughter, Nora, began to roll on her back. Seven-month-old Camryn sat next to her and watched.
“Two weeks ago she can’t sit properly and now she’s sitting,” said Sunny Sklierenko, Camryn’s mother.
Light-hearted, supportive moments like this are what happen at First Time Parent’s Meet-Up, a drop-in program in Kids’ World that allows parents to come together and find support.
“Life is busy, which is why it’s nice to have a drop-in program,” said Sklierenko, who has attended several meetings. “I can just come in and actually meet with other parents and feel like I can have a couple minutes of normalcy because home is just crazy,”
A nurse from Northwest Community Hospital is sometimes present at the meetings to help facilitate conversations. During a recent meet-up, Nurse Cornelia Johnson talked about how to find reliable online resources.
“You can sit at home all day with your baby and your computer and go, ‘I don’t know why my baby is doing this,’ but when you hear from other moms saying ‘this is why,’ [it helps],” Johnson said.
“You get a lot of good advice and it’s good for socialization, Powers said. “Especially for a stay-at-home mom.”
Find the next First-Time Parent's Meet-up on our calendar.