Jennifer Sheridan
What We Do Best
Services
Calls & home visits
We contact you at key milestones during the first year of your baby’s life, and provide same-day home visits for in-person help when you need it!
Warm-Line
We offer a 24- hr “warm-line” number you can call anytime! A trained, compassionate team member will answer or will call you right back.
Pumps & Scales
KINDNESS loans hospital-grade breast pumps and digital infant scales so you have what you need in your own home.
Feeding Aids
We keep a ready inventory of specialty feeding devices and feeding aids that are unavailable in local stores – all free and delivered to your door when you need them.
infant nutrition class
Everything you need to know about starting your baby on solid foods and drinking from a cup, offered monthly.
KINDNESS Enrollment
- HOSPITAL BIRTH: After you deliver at PKIMC, you’ll be provided with KINDNESS program information and invited to enroll. A KINDNESS staff member may visit you to help you get feeding off to a good start even before you leave the hospital.
- HOME BIRTH: Ask your midwife for KINDNESS information and enrollment forms, or call or contact us and we’ll get you set up pronto! You can pre-register with KINDNESS before your home birth, and then call us to activate our services once your baby is born.
- OUTSIDE KODIAK BIRTH: Please call or contact us and we’ll arrange a home visit to enroll you.
Anonymous
You Can Contact Us – ANYTIME
We use a HIPPA-compliant platform for secure and confidential communication with text, phone or video chat. However, it’s hard to help with infant feeding through a text message…so if you have a medium-high concern, or if you need help in the middle of the night, PLEASE call us on our 24- hr “warm-line” number. Message notifications won’t wake us at night, but a phone call will. A real live caring person, who knows you and your family, will answer your call. Our mission is to be there for you, whenever you need us, so never think you are bothering us by calling us anytime of the day or night. If you get our voicemail, we’ll call you back as soon as we’re free. You can email us any questions, but we don’t give detailed individual advice over email, and our response time may be slower than by phone or our messaging service.
Jennifer Sheridan
Sue Zimmerman
Jen McWethy
Sara Brubaker
We Will Contact You
KINDNESS calls you proactively at important feeding milestones after your baby is born, especially in the first weeks and months. We’ll ask you a few questions, and you can ask us anything about your baby’s growth or nutrition. If we don’t know the answer, we’ll refer you to someone who does. You can expect to hear from us around 2-3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months and 1 year after your baby’s birth. If you prefer emails or texts rather than calls for these routine check-ins, just let us know !
We Can Visit You
KINDNESS can visit you in your own home as needed for in person help with breastfeeding, bottle feeding, pumping breast milk, mixing or choosing formula, baby weight checks, infant feeding assessments and training, or even just moral support!
Heather Preece
Heather Preece
Breast Pump & Infant Scale Loans
KINDNESS offers short-term loans of hospital-grade Unimom OPERA breast pumps and SECA digital infant scales. These loans provide peace of mind to families; they can track their infants’ growth between clinic visits during the fragile first month as feeding is being established and bridge the gap if families are waiting for a breast pump or unexpectedly separated from their newborn.
Heather Preece
Heather Preece
“Having access to an infant scale was invaluable for our family. It gave us peace of mind to monitor her growth from the comfort of our homes. Thank you!”
Heather Preece
Feeding Aids
When challenges with infant feeding arise, it can make or break a situation to have the right tool at the moment you need it. KINDNESS keeps an inventory of tools and supplies not easily found on Kodiak to help you meet your goals, including single-user hand pumps, specialty bottles, a variety of breast pump flange sizes, cups, oral feeding syringes and finger feeding tubes, nipple shields, breast shells, and other items. Our Peer Counselors carry a selection of these items in their cars, for ready access at a home visit or same day delivery right to your door!
Infant Nutrition Class
You’ll be invited to our free infant nutrition class when your baby is between three and six months old. This class is based on current AAP infant nutrition recommendations and teaches a developmental vs age-based feeding approach to feeding. In this 45-min session, you’ll have the opportunity to experience through taste-testing how your baby learns to accept new foods and textures, and learn why, when, where, what, and how to start your baby on solids and drinking from a cup. Class is offered on the first Thursday of every month, and is open to the public. Currently, we are teaching this class virtually. CONTACT US to get a meeting link for the live virtual class, or watch it anytime on our Infant Feeding Resources page; you can always call us if you have questions.
Heather Preece