Our Classes

We are proud to offer

Bringing Baby Home

For our group classes, we ask that all participants keep their video on throughout the class. Similar to an in-person class, this creates a sense of community and safety. If you prefer not to be seen, we recommend a private one-on-one session with one of our instructors.

Our Bringing Baby Home class is a hands-on parenting class for expectant parents including
  • Choosing daycare and managing the wait list
  • Building your after-birth support system, including filling in service gaps when you do not have a Family Doctor
  • How to decide what items to purchase for life with a baby
  • Basic baby care including bathing, swaddling, and holding the baby
  • The difference between cloth diapers, disposable diapers and diaper service and the diaper loaner program
  • Benefits of babywearing and how to pick baby carriers for ergonomics
  • Infant Feeding and introducing solids
  • What you need to know when purchasing a car seat for your baby
  • Learn how to properly and safely install your car seat
  • How to properly restrain newborns in car seats
  • How to deal with choking
  • Babyproofing: how to make your home safer for your baby
  • Learn the most common cause of injuries and how they can be prevented
  • Where to purchase home safety products

The cost of class is $200 (CAD) (per couple). 
*A couple is defined as a pregnant person and one support person (which can be a spouse, partner, friend or family member)

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.  Requests for changes within 7 days of class will reflect a $75 fee.  Please remember tihs when booking classes and plan to finish 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.

Lilly was amazing, she has so much experience to share and tips to give. She makes the entire session super lively and interesting. Barely using any notes makes the whole thing more interactive. We both highly appreciated her and would definitely recommend.

Pre Natal – with Lilly Bianchi

The OCEA pre-natal classes are extremely valuable for first-time expecting parents. The information is shared in a very open, practical and fact-based manner without any judgement attached. It's easy to get overwhelmed by all the advice and research that is out there, but the OCEA classes really manage to distill this information and present it in a clear and structured way. The instructors are very experienced and knowledgeable and are great inter-personally. We were particularly impressed by how they handled giving online classes during the pandemic. They also provide a lot of Ottawa-specific information on the amazing resources that are available here. This was particularly useful to us as newcomers. We have many friends who have given birth in other countries, and when telling them about our experience with OCEA they have all said that nothing like this was available to them and it would have been so useful. Overall, we would highly recommend taking these classes.

Pre Natal – with Julia Wykes

Again thanks for all the work you've done to make the class accessible during this time and to update all the resources.

Pre Natal One Day – with Brandie Lekovic

Lilly was fantastic and had a calm, informative and empowering approach to educating our class on prenatal subjects and what we could expect as new parents. She was very thorough and welcomed any questions we had, which created a very open and comfortable atmosphere for learning. Lily took the time to learn about each couple's care and birth plans, and was able to cater information to us in a very thoughtful way. My partner and I looked forward to our lessons and felt we benefited from them immensely, I would highly recommend this course to parents-to-be!

Pre Natal – with Lilly Bianchi

Lilly is a wonderful educator. She has vast knowledge of the subject along with calm and reassuring demeanor, patience and excellent communication skills. We enjoyed listening and learning from her.

Pre Natal – with Lilly Bianchi

This course was a great introduction in all things labour. Things are a bit different in Covid-19 times and our instructor made a point of keeping us up to date with what to expect while being very empathetic with the challenges this situation brings to labour and tricks to get through it positively.

Pre Natal – with Lilly Bianchi

I would recommend this prenatal class to anyone having a baby! The mechanics of childbirth are so much more complicated than I thought, but Brandie explained everything perfectly! We laughed, and learned so much! I definitely recommend the course, it is SO worth the investment!

Pre Natal – with Brandie Lekovic

This was an excellent course and Erin was wonderful. She answered questions with clarity, had a wealth of knowledge and experience, gave relevant examples, and was non-judgmental and open. I already recommended this class to another expecting family because I do not know how we would have gained this knowledge without it. The science and evidence base at the center of the class was really refreshing and useful because the wealth of information online is generally confusing and contradictory. Erin cleared up so much of that confusion for us. Thank you!!

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

Highly recommend taking this course. There is so much information available out there, but to have it consolidated into a series of classes led by a fantastic educator made us feel confident in moving towards our next phase of life with our newborn. Erin is endlessly knowledgeable and patient, she is well-versed with all the most up to date research and health guidelines, and her familiarity of local resources is amazing. There is so much to learn, but this class made it feel manageable.

Bringing Baby Home – with Erin Shaheen

She was very informative and very kind. Thank you again for starting a chat at the end of the class about how all of us were doing and suggesting that we check in again in a week.

Pre Natal One Day – with Brandie Lekovic

I had no idea what doing the class over Zoom would be like but Brandie was excellent!

Pre Natal One Day – with Brandie Lekovic


 
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  • Online

    Bringing Baby Home
    weekend
    Sat, April 20 · April 21 · April 27 & April 28, 2024
    09:00 AM - 12:00 PM
    Online Class Using Zoom
    Register now

  • Online

    Bringing Baby Home
    6 weekday evenings
    FULL
    Tue, April 30 · May 7 · May 14 · May 21 ·
    May 28 & June 4, 2024

    07:00 PM - 09:15 PM
    Online Class Using Zoom
    Register now

  • Online

    Bringing Baby Home
    weekend
    Sat, May 11 · May 12 · May 18 & May 19, 2024
    09:00 AM - 12:00 PM
    Online Class Using Zoom
    Register now

  • Online

    Bringing Baby Home
    6 weekday evenings
    Wed, June 5 · June 10 · June 12 · June 17 ·
    June 19 & June 24, 2024

    07:00 PM - 09:15 PM
    Online Class Using Zoom
    Register now

  • Online

    Bringing Baby Home
    weekend
    Sat, June 15 · June 16 · June 22 & June 23, 2024
    09:00 AM - 12:00 PM
    Online Class Using Zoom
    Register now

  • Online

    Bringing Baby Home
    6 weekday evenings
    Mon, July 15 · July 17 · July 22 · July 24 ·
    July 29 & July 31, 2024

    07:00 PM - 09:15 PM
    Online Class Using Zoom
    Register now

  • Online

    Bringing Baby Home
    weekend
    Sat, July 20 · July 21 · July 27 & July 28, 2024
    09:00 AM - 12:00 PM
    Online Class Using Zoom
    Register now

  • Online

    Bringing Baby Home
    weekend
    Sat, Aug. 3 · Aug. 4 · Aug. 10 & Aug. 11, 2024
    09:00 AM - 12:00 PM
    Online Class Using Zoom
    Register now

  • Online

    Bringing Baby Home
    6 weekday evenings
    Wed, Aug. 21 · Aug. 28 · Sept. 4 · Sept. 11 ·
    Sept. 18 & Sept. 25, 2024

    07:00 PM - 09:15 PM
    Online Class Using Zoom
    Register now

  • Online

    Bringing Baby Home
    6 weekday evenings
    Tue, Sept. 3 · Sept. 10 · Sept. 17 · Sept. 24 ·
    Oct. 1 & Oct. 8, 2024

    07:00 PM - 09:15 PM
    Online Class Using Zoom
    Register now

  • Online

    Bringing Baby Home
    6 weekday evenings
    Mon, Oct. 7 · Oct. 14 · Oct. 21 · Oct. 28 ·
    Nov. 4 & Nov. 11, 2024

    07:00 PM - 09:15 PM
    Online Class Using Zoom
    Register now