Our Classes

We are proud to offer

It Takes a Village: A class for Grandparents and other Supporters

The last 30 years have offered families more information than ever before on Infant Mental Health, Skin to Skin and strategies to support attachment,  which has resulted in changes in our day-to-day parenting techniques.  And of course, Covid-19 has impacted our support systems immensely.  Our parenting values of unconditional love,  understanding, parenting with intention have all remained, but the tools available to us have changed, and work-life-balance for 2024 families is different.  Leave with practical strategies to support your adult children and grandchildren, your extended family member, or your very best friend through the following topics and more!   

We will cover newborn sleep recommendations
Car seat information
Babywearing
Infant feeding recommendations
Supporting a new family during Covid-19 
How you can use technology to stay connected to your grandchild

Registration is per couple OR for one participant and their Plus-One (ie: Grandma-to-be and an Auntie ). Leave feeling excited to be able to offer support for your family that reflects all of your family’s values.

Refund Policy: When cancelling a prenatal class after it has been booked there is a $25 (CAD) administration fee. If the cancellation occurs less than 14 days before the class there is a 50% cancellation fee. If it is less than 7 days there is no refund.  Request for date changes within 7 days of class will reflect a $75 fee.  Please keep this in mind when booking classes and plan to be finished your session by 35 weeks.

People who took our online class during COVID-19 had this to say:

Given the continued need to physically distance, the size of our room rentals and the evolving state of our global pandemic, OCEA will continue to offer all classes online throughout 2022.
We dearly want to support the health of expectant families.

The virtual class provided by OCEA was very informative and a great way to prepare for labour as well as childbirth. Especially during a global pandemic/lockdown/stay-at-home order this was more than beneficial for mommy and daddy-to-be! We are extremely grateful for this opportunity and feel much more confident bringing our little bundle of joy into this world!

Pre Natal – with Julia Wykes

This class strikes a great balance between super practical guidance and insights on day-to-day life with a new baby, and also up to date, thoroughly referenced, scientifically backed health information and parenting discourse.

Bringing Baby Home – with Erin Shaheen

She was very engaging and passionate about the information she was sharing. I enjoyed her teaching style.

Pre Natal – with Julia Wykes

Julia was wonderful. Her voice is both lively and soothing to listen to. She’s also really hilarious. I loved the added bits of humour. She gave many opportunities to ask questions throughout the course. If she isn’t sure about something, she accesses her own resources/network and gets back to you with an answer. As COVID protocols are constantly changing within the healthcare domain (hospitals, birth centres, home births), I thought she was very knowledgeable about the current situation within each place. She was very knowledgeable about the birth process and the postpartum period for the family unit. There were many resources that we could access to facilitate some of the topics within the class that could need more attention either in the prenatal period or postpartum period (I.e infant feeding) which was great!

Pre Natal – with Julia Wykes

Erin is a fabulous teacher! Great personality, very approachable, very non-judgemental. She is also super knowledgable. Would highly recommend her and would love to hire her as a Doula if they are allowed to work again when we give deliver.

Bringing Baby Home – with Erin Shaheen

Erin's enthusiasm for babies, parenting, and supporting new parents really made the class shine.

Bringing Baby Home – with Erin Shaheen

Lily was fabulous and very knowledgeable. I highly recommend the class and the instructor.

Pre Natal – with Lilly Bianchi

We very much enjoyed the online OCEA pre-natal course and are glad we took it. We appreciated that our instructor presented unbiased information on the birth process that was specific to Ottawa hospitals. Even my partner who already has experience with childbirth and babies learned a few new things! Would recommend to other expecting parents.

Pre Natal – with Misty Pratt

Lilly is a very skilled educator. She lays out the course material in a way that is very approachable and spends an appropriate amount of time on each subject. More importantly, Lilly created a safe environment in the class where no one ever felt intimidated by asking a question, and used inclusive terms like "partner" instead of "dad" or "husband" and "chestfeeding" instead of "breastfeeding". I would recommend Lilly's class to everyone I know!

Pre Natal – with Lilly Bianchi

This course exceeded my expectations. Even done through Zoom it was a very informative and welcoming environment. I feel much more prepared having taken this course. I highly recommend it.

Pre Natal – with Lilly Bianchi

We really appreciated Julia's approach. She was objective, knowledgable and funny! I appreciated her non-judgemental but also no-nonsense attitude very much:)

Pre Natal – with Julia Wykes

OCEA classes, like the Bringing Baby Home course, were our best investment pre-baby! We feel more confident, prepared, and better equipped to deal with the normal challenges facing every new parents. We cannot recomment OCEA classes enough - the instructors are truly amazing, endless source of knowledge and compassion. OCEA classes are huge confidence boosters, and they are also...fun (even virtually). We loved everything about the Bringing Baby Home, and our ongoing pre-natal class.

Bringing Baby Home – with Erin Shaheen


 
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  • Online

    It Takes a Village
    3 weekdays
    Mon, June 3 · June 10 & June 17, 2024
    07:00 PM - 09:15 PM
    Online Class Using Zoom
    Register now