Hi! I just joined today. So glad I found this forum. I am in training as a postpartum doula with DONA. I have done my 3-day training, all my reading and am now finishing by working with families. I am heading into week 6 with this family. I know I was crucial for the first 4 weeks, and now have been encouraging mom to get up, see friends, and get back to the life she wants to return to. She is ready and it's the right next step for her. She's going to lots of new mom support groups and encouraging visits from family and close friends. When we spoke about this coming week's schedule I threw the word "if" into the conversation, as in "if you need me ..." Her response was that of course she still "needs me to come. I mean, the house is a disaster. I've been resting a lot and getting out, like you've suggested, so all that housework is piling up." So now, I have always helped out with baby's laundry, putting away dishes cooking, food and cleaning up after myself. Even swiffered a bit in the beginning because it needed to get done. And watered the plants outside. But that was small in comparison to the doula work I came to do, utilizing my training and experience as a mom of 4 kids. She does have a cleaning lady, but she has told me she trusts me and prefers for me to help out. Is this still postpartum work or have I crosses the line to maid service?

At what point do you guide the job to a close, and how comfortable are you helping out with household chores? Thanks.

P.S.: I should add that the mom and I have a great chemistry and will continue on as friends as our professional relationship shifts. So there is no rush for me to get out of their lives. Just curious about the professionalism of what I'm being asked to do.

I think that depends on you. Honestly, I feel like the definition of what I do as a postpartum doula (just as when I am working as a birth doula) is so different from family to family. Also, postpartum work is spotty here, so when I find a client who wants to pay me to come and do x, y, and z, I usually don't mind as long as it falls within the things I would normally help with (child/sibling care, light housework, baby laundry, light meal prep). I think other doulas feel that is not within our scope of practice, but I'm not in the position to be that picky. I got bills to pay, yo.

And, also, some of these women just really like the companionship.... they don't really need the help as much as they like having another person around to talk to. I think that's doula-ing, too.

Do you enjoy it and is it worth the money to you? I think that's up to you to decide. But in the future you could plainly lay out what you do and do not offer in your PP services now that you have some experiences with it. That way you don't feel like you're in a "gray area" with clients in the future.

Thank you both very much. I do know, after today, that I am still needed and my concerns flew out the window. But it does leave me wondering if I will know how and when to work myself out of a job when the time comes. But with this client the time isn't here quite yet.

Just curious, how did you set up payment? Did she purchase a set number of PPD hours, or was it a number a visits she purchased (amount in hours not specified)? Or what? This seems like a very likely situation to find myself in, in the future. Tricky!

JuliaRose, I fill out a time sheet for her every week and she gets billed for the hours.

Thanks DoulaRivkah, that makes sense to leave it flexible and the hours worked clearly documented. Thanks!

If you want to avoid it in the future, you could throw something in your contract like "I have a policy to only offer postpartum services in the four weeks after the birth." and explain that it is so you may free up your schedule for other clients/ family time.