Joanna was our night doula from the night we took our baby home until she was about 2 months old…read more She was such a lifesaver for us as first time parents who had no idea what we were doing! Here's why we loved her: * Family-focused, not just baby-focused - she was the only person we interviewed who asked my husband how he was doing! * Helped me figure out best positions for nursing, how to swaddle, burping, and all hectic things about feeding a newborn * Brought so much positive energy and warmth, clearly feels huge responsibility and optimism about the next generation we're all raising * Flexible and generous with her time, always made sure the baby was fully asleep in our room even if it meant she stayed a few min overtime * Responsive and well read on all things baby-related, often shared articles or documentaries about raising babies * Strong network of postpartum supporters, e.g., helped us find our lactation consultant and another doula for when she was out of town Joanna was a joy to work with and such a reassuring presence during those first few weeks home from the hospital. Highly recommend reaching out to her!

I highly recommend scheduling a visit because it's an experience you will look forward to every…read moretime. I was thankfully introduced to Joanna by a friend and I loved the 1st experience so much I'm integrating sound healing sessions as part an investment in my health and well being. Joanna is a true professional very knowledgeable, great communicator and listener, friendly, centered, calm, and empowering. I've become a believer and so will you ;) cheers

Aki has been a regular speaker at our Co-op preschool. I really enjoy listening to her talks and…read morelearning new parenting tools from her. She is an engaging speaker. Recently I had a question that I thought of after one her talks and I emailed her. She promptly replied, asking that I call her. We played phone tag a couple times and I finally got a hold of her. We spoke for a few minutes. She provided some concrete advice about how to go about handling my issue. I am happy to report that her advice was on spot. She even emailed back to follow up. Aki is awesome!!

Shout out to Aki! She is just wonderful. I first came across her on a Mama FB group we are all a…read morepart of, and she was hosting a webinar on figuring out the "preschool puzzle" that exists in SF. Right away I loved her energy. She is friendly and enthusiastic about parenting and all that comes with it, which is so necessary in the face of the challenges that come up. i was impressed with both her knowledge and her totally impartial attitude, giving us mamas all the room in the world to make the choices we wanted to make. Recently, I ran into a challenging situation in my family, and when I was contemplating who I could speak to about this, she came to mind. she was very responsive and we set up a phone consultation immediately. The second we got on the phone, I felt relieved. I explained the situation to her and she was SO compassionate and non judgemental, reassuring me while also addressing the challenges as something to be dealt with. She gave me some great information about how my son is developing at his age and how the challenges would impact him, and some concrete ideas of how to improve the situation. I left the call feeling so much better, lighter, with specific actions to take. I highly recommend Aki's phone consultations- they are easy to set up, you do them from the comfort of your home, and you get top notch support. Thanks Aki!

We've had such a wonderful experience with Lexie (Alexandra) from the time she was our lactation…read moreconsultant during our stay at CPMC Sutter through sessions at Newborn Connections post-delivery. She has been so kind, patient, and open to our million questions as first-time parents. In the hospital, her warm presence helped me feel calm despite not knowing what I was doing at all with breastfeeding. Even after leaving the hospital, we knew we wanted to continue seeing her and drove all the way back just to see her. She's helped me with my baby's latch, pumping volume, and most importantly, our feeding plan, helping to adjust based on our needs and goals. She's always encouraging and never makes us feel rushed. If only she was available for in-home sessions! The space at Newborn Connections is also great in that the store sells everything you could need at a reasonable price, and there's a community room where you can feed and weigh your baby. My only gripe is that parking is expensive.

I've felt very cared for by everyone I've encountered here throughout pregnancy and postpartum, but…read morewanted to especially highlight Ocean Berg. In just a couple lactation consultancy appointments, we've made so many breakthroughs in feeding with Ocean. I love how she attentively watches our baby for cues before trying to come up with a solution. She is super encouraging and strikes the right balance between being a great listener and getting right to the action, which makes for very productive sessions where we get a lot of practice in. We had also attended her childbirth class when I was pregnant, which I had found pretty educational. For example, she had made us feel very comfortable with fentanyl as a painkiller during labor, which turned out to be extra important for me since the anesthesiologist wasn't available to give an epidural before my baby came out so I had to rely on fentanyl during labor. My main complaint is that introductions took quite a while because every couple in attendance answers 5 or so questions, and it was hard to schedule the class online and also reschedule it when the dates changed. Lastly, I love that Newborn Connections has Saturday lactation consultant appointments available. And also the appointments end up very affordable after being billed to my insurance!

Wow, I can't believe it's been over 6 years! I met Sandy at…read moreher original location back when my nephew use to attend Modern PlaySpace. Fast forward to today, now my son attends Modern PlaySpace at the new location! Sandy has not changed, always so warm and friendly. All the new teachers I've met are just as amazing. Modern PlaySpace is always so clean and organized. When you walk in, it's so inviting with all the toys and colors. There's so many fun activities for the kids. My son is within autism spectrum and at Modern PlaySpace all the activities are so supportive of his needs. They do lots of sensory friendly activities and the kids practice living skills. Not to mention we have been accommodated with having my son's therapist arriving to give him his session there. All of my son's therapists love it at Modern PlaySpace too. We're honestly so grateful to be at Modern PlaySpace working with Sandy and all the teachers. Never in all my years have I ever felt pressured in any way. I truly feel comfortable having all the children in my family attending Modern PlaySpace. If you want a safe, clean, fun and small group setting for your children to attend, then I highly recommend Modern PlaySpace.

A safe, loving and nurturing environment that support healthy growth and development, challenging…read moreyoung children to learn and prepare them for kindergarten. My son kenzo was been here for 8 months, and he improved a lot. I love this place.

My partner and I recently completed the Hypnobirthing three week course at Brilliant Births. We had…read morean absolutely incredible experience, for many reasons--The information we learned was invaluable, but also the instructors' teaching styles and depth of personal experience they offered was appreciated, comforting, and helpful. They clearly have a deep well of wisdom and experience-based expertise to share. We started our class with Keira and absolutely loved her--originally we were a bit bummed to know we would have a different instructor for our last day of the course. However, it turned out that Heidi was equitably wonderful and all things lovely-- instead of only one great instructor and guide, we ended up with two...which leads me to believe you'll be in skilled hands with anyone you interact with at BB. We will definitely be returning to take advantage of their other offerings!

I reached out to Brilliant Births to find a birth doula. They offer a matching service and…read moreconnected me to 3 doulas who work independently (not employees of BB). We were really fortunate to find our birth doula (who we love!), but the other 2 candidates were not very impressive. The first doula missed our appointment with no follow-up communication. We were initially confused and thought she was the coordinator for BB, because she only communicated by text. The actual meeting was just by telephone so there was no face-to-face interaction, which felt strange. We could've easily FaceTimed or Zoomed. So communication and reliability were not great. The second doula abruptly canceled our half-hour appointment when we were 10 minutes late for a 30-minute appointment due to my husband wrapping up a Zoom meeting. During our appointment time, she was responding to my emails (in which I apologized for being late), but insisted she could no longer meet with us. I thought this was a really bad sign about what she would be like to work with - labor and delivery is rarely precisely timed and some flexibility is needed. In addition, her email said that she lives in Portola Valley, but we live Berkeley (also where Brilliant Births is located). This also struck me as strange, because it would take 1.5 hours for her to arrive to meet us at the hospital, which is not ideal.

Absolutely amazing class! Had so much fun learning and taking this class. Left feeling less…read moreanxious, reassured and with a birth plan! Would 100% recommend for first time moms, such a great experience.

Felicia is absolutely the best. This class is very informative! I'd say the best part is Felicia is…read morealso my birth doula, which I'm extremely grateful to have her. She helped with me the best birth experience I can ask for. I'd strongly recommend every expecting mama to take this class AND hire Felicia as your birth doula if you are considering a doula!

My family's experience at ACNC was very frustrating and painful. The clinic (from admin staff to…read morethe supervisor to the owner of the clinic) made the process of getting my child properly assessed emotionally draining and expensive (as I had to go to a second clinic for a proper evaluation). During the ACNC evaluation process, the student evaluator and her supervisor minimized my reports regarding my experience with my kid and provided alternative reasons my child was presenting with ASD symptoms. These alternative reasons were completely debunked by the second evaluation I received, where the clinical psychologist I saw confirmed my son has autism. Most importantly- this is not a neurodivergent-affirming clinic. They do not seem to be informed about recent advances concerning the different presentations autism can have. I would strongly encourage ACNC to include recent advances and research in their practice and provide neurodivergent-affirming care.

Our son showed developmental delays and we were plunged into the world of finding a developmental…read morepediatrician to do a diagnosis (which takes forever) and researching ABA agencies and programs. This is really hard to do when you don't have a diagnosis yet and don't understand the world of ASD services. Which agencies are good? How do they differ? Should you do ABA, floortime, ESDM, discrete trials....? The Regional Center was a disaster to communicate with, so no help there. What you really need is someone who knows the available treatments and programs AND has the experience to understand your child to recommend where to begin and how to start intervention. Enter: Lina Fancy. We would have been absolutely lost without her, especially because we got things rolling in Feb 2020, and the world shut down the next month. Because of Jumpstart and Lina's help, we had a gameplan. We began our own version of intervention based on her recommendations (ESDM for the win!) and saw amazing results. Our little guy came back to us- looking in the eye again, attending, showing us what he was capable of. We've since moved cross country but we STILL talk to Lina periodically to get her counsel. Jumpstart is absolutely the place to go.

I've seen people say great things about this place but I did not have that great of an experience…read more Note also I never participated in their services or activities. I brought my daughter who is two to visit and check things out and being a two year old she was acting unruly and noisy (yes, immaturity is the definition of being a toddler). One of the ladies there gave me a very unpleasant expression and outright told me that my daughter needed better manners and discipline. In my head I'm thinking, who are you to define what a two year old needs? Should I be complaining about your urinary incontinence and constipation problems when you have them, you old hag? Go take your osteoporosis medications. I left immediately and I've never looked back. I expected much better in a city of acceptance such as SF. My review is just a population of 1, so I'm sure that many reviews here hold true and am happy others have found a good experience because as parents, all we want is a good environment for our children to be in.

I used to take my son to the wednesday morning drop-in play group with Jenni Clancy, and we both…read moreloved it! Jenni and the other parents/nannies were were all really friendly and welcoming. The play group has unstructured play time for the kids for about one hour, and then a short circle time with songs, puppets, and bubbles. We haven't been for about 6 months due to a conflict in our schedule, but my son still sings and loves the songs he learned from Jenni's circle time. The play room is small, but I never felt like it was too crowded, and they have plenty of toys and activities for the kids to play with. I would say that the ideal age range is from 6 months to about 2.5 years. This is a great place to bring a crawling child because of the size and layout of the play space. It is also a bit cheaper than many of the drop-in play groups when you get the 5 time punch card.