When Mother Knows Best

They have advanced degrees, kids of their own, and massive followings. A new kind of parenting expert has emerged online.

- ELIANA DOCKTERMAN

THERE IS AN ART TO LAYING DOWN A NEWborn baby. Or, rather, a science. The American Academy of Pediatrics will tell you that babies need to sleep swaddled, on their backs, in an empty bassinet. But what if your infant abhors a crib? If you buy a newborn course offered by Cara Dumaplin, the former NICU and labor-and-delivery nurse who bills herself as a baby and toddler sleep expert, as I did when my daughter was 6 weeks old, you will get a video demonstration of how to make the dreaded chestto-bassinet transfer. In it, a swaddled baby lies across Dumaplin's forearm, head resting in her palm. Dumaplin's thumb holds a pacifier in the child's mouth. Dumaplin doesn't rock the baby to sleep but rather moves her wrist to subtly jiggle the head back and forth. When the child's eyes begin to flutter, Dumaplin slips her into a crib. She then removes her forearm like a spatula from beneath a pancake.

Dumaplin, a mother of four, likens what she does across her platforms to the work she did translating medical jargon for new moms in the hospital. "When the doctor comes and says, 'I think we have a prolapsed cord and need a C-section... I'm putting it in layman's terms, like 'Your baby is telling us he's in trouble. But I've got you.