Meet the ‘New’ Dream Team
Pam Diamond, Founder
Pam is the Triangle’s baby whisperer, helping families fix what’s not working and enjoy what is.
Pam hired a postpartum doula after the birth of her first child more than 28 years ago. The guidance and support she received helped build her confidence as a mother, while also planted the seeds for her future career!
Now, Pam is the Triangle's baby whisperer. As a parent and newborn coach, postpartum doula, and baby sleep consultant, Pam’s life’s work is helping babies and families get off to the best possible start. Pam was one of the first fifty sleep consultants trained under Kim West, author of The Sleep Lady's Good Night, Sleep Tight. She is a certified HUG Your Baby teacher and has worked as a lactation support volunteer at WakeMed and a volunteer mentor in the Welcome Baby program through SAFEchild of Wake County. Pam volunteered with La Leche League for more than eighteen years and was a professional advisor for the PESNC (Postpartum Education and Support North Carolina) support group, Moms Supporting Moms, where she applied her extensive experience helping mothers with postpartum mood disorders (postpartum depression and anxiety). She is certified in Mental Health First Aid and can help families assess postpartum mental health concerns and connect to support services.
When she's not working, Pam volunteers with Wake Audubon Society and can be found scouring the trees with her binoculars, hoping to spot interesting birds. She also enjoys paddleboarding, growing her own veggies, and hosting hootenannies with family and friends.
“Our 7 month old slept through the night last night a full 11 hours without waking. He is not crying when in his crib. At naps we are witnessing him wake/stir after 30 minutes and put himself back to sleep. It’s sooooo awesome! If things continue to go so well I’m sure you won’t be hearing from us as much but we are just so delighted to have sanity and sleep restored in our home, and we have YOU to thank. This has been the best experience so far!”
The Dream Team Approach
First Daze doulas and sleep coaches are dedicated to creating happy families through compassionate, skilled care. Like the flamingos in our logo, we take a nurturing, community approach to raising children.
From these colorful and graceful creatures, we can learn the value of working as a team to build peaceful, happy families from the day of a child’s birth. In flamingo child rearing, incubation of the egg and feeding of the newborn chick are responsibilities shared by both parents. Also, flamingos build their nests close to other flamingos, creating a tightly knit community of helpers; young flamingos are cared for by the entire flock of adult flamingos.
We consider it an honor to be invited into the nests of our clients with infants and young children – while we’re there, we do everything we can to contribute to the rest and well-being of the whole family.
Karen Baker
An energetic mother of multiples, Karen’s compassionate expertise has helped hundreds of families embrace the challenges of parenthood.
Karen’s interest in postpartum doula work began not long after her own twins were born in 2005. She learned firsthand – from her own experience and from volunteering with a local twin mom’s group – that even seasoned mothers need mothering themselves in order provide the best care for their babies and themselves.
Karen earned her Masters of Social Work from UNC Chapel Hill in 2004. She worked for several years with adults with mental illness; her work also included crisis intervention and death and dying issues, including pregnancy loss. After becoming a DONA-certified postpartum doula, Karen began her work helping new and growing families with newborn care and sleep, breastfeeding assistance, care of multiples, guidance and resources for pediatric developmental delay and disabilities, special dietary needs for families, and postpartum experiences after infertility.
An NC native, Karen lives in Apex with her family where she loves reading, competitive running, stand-up paddleboarding, following UNC basketball and ECU football, and spending as much time as possible at the beach. Karen is also a fantastic cook and baker — she enjoys creating delicious meals for her family and postpartum clients.
“The service provided by you and your doulas was one of the only reasons my husband and I got through those first 5 months with our sanity. It was worth every penny and I would absolutely recommend you guys to anyone that I come in contact with. ”
Kara Curtis
Kara's passion is for guiding parents to self-confidence through the discovery of their own unique parenting style.
If baby whispering can be genetic, Kara’s skill has been passed down through a long line. Kara grew up with a large extended family, and there were always plenty of babies around to inspire her life-long love of children. She has witnessed firsthand how the right information at the right time can help parents more deeply understand their children and tap into their very best parenting instincts. Along with practical support, she loves to share both tried-and-true knowledge and cutting edge science to help parents make sense of their experiences and solve problems around sleep, feeding, and making daily life run more smoothly.
In addition to being a doula, Kara spent more than a decade in Capability Development at Accenture and worked as the Newborn Care Educator at BABY + Co in Cary; she is also a trained facilitator for the Gottman Institute’s Bringing Baby Home program. Kara is certified in Mental Health First Aid and prepared to help families assess postpartum mental health concerns and connect to support services.
When not cuddling babies, Kara loves long distance trekking (she walked the width of Spain over the course of one month!), reading, and staying active in the local reuse and sustainability scene.
Missy Altman
Missy believes in empowering parents by teaching them to recognize their baby’s early cues.
Missy’s three boys are now grown, but she remembers those joyful yet challenging early days when she struggled with breastfeeding and sleep. Now, Missy helps families adjust to the changes a new baby can bring. She guides new parents to build confidence and teaches them to become experts on their baby by learning to recognize their child's early cues.
Missy became certified as a postpartum doula in 2012 and quickly began helping parents unlock the mysteries of newborns and young babies. She has worked with many twins, and particularly enjoys supporting parents around the challenges they bring. Her love for knowledge led her to train as a Newborn Care Specialist and get certified as both a Night Sleep Coach and Child Sleep Consultant. A good night’s sleep for all her clients has become her passion!
In her free time, Missy enjoys reading, traveling internationally with her husband, and spending time with her grandchildren. She’s also an avid crocheter and many of her clients have been the lucky recipients of her precious creations!
“Missy joined us the day after we came home with our first baby. We were thrilled to have the extra hands from someone who is an experienced doula and could lead us on the right path. Missy helped us with everything from nursing to organizing our baby’s closet to letting us get some much needed sleep! She also guided us through baby’s milestones. As a new mom, the first few weeks are overwhelming and exhausting, so having the extra support was such a relief. I am so grateful for the services we received from First Daze and Nightzzz!”
Tanecia Balderas
Tanecia’s parenting style is one of love and compassion with a healthy dose of focus on good routines and old fashioned hard work.
Since her first child was born almost 21 years ago, Tanecia has been smitten with everything birth and babies. She learned about doulas during her second pregnancy when she was fortunate to have her own birth doula through Operation Special Delivery. More than just assist during labor, Tanecia’s doula helped her “become a mother of two and understand how that might look.”
Now a busy mom and student working on her Master’s degree, Tanecia, uses her expertise and innate skills to help new parents establish developmentally appropriate routines and habits. Tanecia stays up to date on the latest gear and prides herself on being able to help parents transition babies from a Snoo to a crib.
With experience in just about everything mama and baby – from breastfeeding and pumping to cloth diapering and baby wearing, to having had a newborn in NICU, to working outside the home as well as staying home with her children – Tanecia offers valuable insight and support to her families.
“I struggled with breastfeeding for weeks, and I’ll never forget how kind Tanecia was the night I decided to exclusively pump. She made me feel so successful and proud. ”
Beth Mathai
Becoming a resource to new parents and helping them grow and build confidence was a natural career transition for Beth.
After her twins were born, Beth felt overwhelmed and exhausted by the challenges of mothering multiples. It was after the support she received from others that she realized the importance of postpartum care and led to her change from working in Human Resources to becoming a “human resource” for new parents.
Beth combines her skills as an HR professional, her experiences as a mother of twins and her postpartum doula training to help new parents adjust to the challenges of new babies in the home. Excellent communication skills, empathy, listening skills – she uses all of these and more as she helps parents foster growth and success in their new roles.
Prior to becoming a doula, Beth held leadership positions in her local twin parenting group. She enjoyed meeting expectant and new parents and supporting them as they navigated the journey of new parenthood.
Beth speaks fluent Thai (her mother is from Thailand) and lived in different parts of Asia as a child. Outside of work, she plays tennis, enjoys hikes on local trails with her family and loves traveling internationally to explore different countries and cultures.
“Beth has been a super doula and made me lactation muffins, energy bites, and oatmeal. It has truly helped my supply! She also has an amazing ability to instantly calm babies — we saw it in action many nights!”
Mary Grace Trebel
Years of working with infants and young children launched Mary Grace into a professional doula career, blending her strengths and experience to support new and growing families.
Mary Grace is passionate about all things baby. In fact, soothing fussy babies is her superpower. Her background includes nannying for more than 6 years, caring for children for more than a dozen years, as well as teaching infant and toddler swim lessons for a couple of years. All these experiences taught her not only how best to work with infants and children, but also how to come alongside parents and support the family dynamic. Working as a postpartum doula utilizes her strengths and experience with infant care and household support perfectly.
Mary Grace’s postpartum doula training through DONA International expanded her knowledge in breastfeeding support, postpartum care, and how best to support a family with a new baby or babies. The work truly brings her joy.
When not cuddling babies and supporting families, Mary Grace can be found playing board games, reading, and visiting local coffee shops.
Like the flamingos in our logo, we take a nurturing, community approach to raising children.