When my Dutch wife told me about Kraamzorg, I was admittedly a little confused. As an Englishman this is super uncommon, so my expectation was that an elderly nurse close to retirement would come to our house and tell us off for doing everything wrong and laugh at the new age idiocy of our “Montessori baby” book on the coffee table.

Fast forward to our first meeting with Maartje, and I was pleasantly surprised. We’d been recommended to speak to Maartje by some friends and after a short FaceTime call, my fears about Kraamweek were allayed. Maartje asked about our story, our expectations and our home for our daughter. All of our questions were answered, and that was it. We had Kraamzorg & I totally forgot about it.

A few weeks before the due date of our daughter, Maartje came to our home and we had a great conversation, set our expectations and gave us some advice on things we still needed to get for the baby, plus how to best set up our home for the best care for baby and mum.

When our daughter was born, we whatsapped Maartje who met us at home when we arrived and helped us set up for our first night as a family. It was so much of a relief to be shown the finer details of baby bedding and breastfeeding, and of course for daddy how to properly change a nappy. Maartje had to go but as promised she would arrive at 730am leaving us to just survive a few hours alone… 5am my wife and I looked at each other “Maartje will be here in a couple of hours” we said. And sure enough our saviour let herself in and greeted us with a warm bowl of porridge. We were then given some rest as she looked after our daughter for a couple hours so we could prepare for the lessons and crying from both baby and us over the next few hours.

I won’t get into the details of the entire week but Maartje taught us everything we needed to know that by day 4 we felt like we were ready to go it alone! We got a 24 hour trial by ourselves and things went okay, but naturally we missed the angel that is Maartje. We were taught at a pace that wasn’t overwhelming but really gave us our wings as parents and helped us to get the hands on experience needed to take proper care of our daughter, and at the same time, Maartje took care of us.

I expected Kraamzorg to be pretty mundane but we got Maartje’s magic. Instead of a Maternity Professional, we got the Dutch Mary Poppins! We also got delicious food, better than many restaurants even and we still can’t replicate her amazing carrot soup after 4 attempts. We got schooling that is better than any course we’ve attended, and whilst your parents or mother in law may have their opinions, Maartje has her facts. Facts based on research and decades of experience which helps you to truly parent your way and fight the answer “you turned out fine” with “well actually…”, “research shows” and “Maartje said…” the ultimate ace up your sleeve in the battle of rules with the grandparents.

All in all, we had the best experience with Maartje and can’t recommend her enough. We were cared for beyond measure & truly given the tools to flourish as a family, we cannot express our gratitude enough and will simply say that having Maartje for Kraamzorg is the best start in life for your baby and the best start to parenthood for yourselves…. Sluiten