IMAGINE waking up in a tired haze to feed your baby for the third time in a night, and, as you succumb to another pointless social media scroll, a text message laden with parenting tips (of the genuinely useful variety) glows on your screen.
This has been the reality for more than 3500 families across Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and Port Stephens under a two-year NSW Health pilot.
The Healthy Beginnings program, designed by a team of allied health professional, provides tips on important milestones for mums and bubs until five years of age. It is now being rolled out further across the Hunter New England Health District.
The texts include colourful charts for things like introducing solids or helping children walk. For more complex information, links to reliable Australian sites are provided.
Lindsey Mulville gave birth to daughter Winter 15 months ago. She has been using the texting service ever since and said she would be "lost" without it.
"The thing I like the most is that it's really simple," Ms Mulville said. "When [Winter] was a baby, I was up at two or three o'clock in the morning. At that time, you don't want to read through journal articles. You just want simple, easy.
"It made it so much easier to understand rather than having to go on Google, sift through what was relevant and useful. I know this is backed by doctors and midwives and I can trust the information," she said.
Clinical nurse consultant Tauri Smart has been part of the team developing the program. She believed parents now "find most information online", so the text-based system was an important point in healthcare progression.
Ms Smart and the team had accounted for things like divergence in child development and texts vary whether mums choose to breast, bottle or mix feed. Contact numbers for experts are provided in the texts if parents need more information.
"I think because there's so much health information out there, this is really helpful. You're getting information at the right stage for families," Ms Smart said. "With the expertise of clinicians, you see what milestones are coming up."
Each person on the team has different interests around pregnancy, labour and early years. Ms Smart, for example, is well versed in perinatal mental health. Others have expertise in language development and feeding.
"We meet [as a team] very regularly," Ms Smart said. "No one has been really set in their own ways so it's been really good to work out what we're going to hang on to and what we're going to get rid of.
"There's lots of mutual care and respect," she said.
First-time mums and experienced parents alike have benefitted from the program. Wendy Knox mum to 18-month-old Archie, works in health.
She and her husband Brett said there was nothing they would change about the program aside from wishing it was available earlier.
"I like the resources that come out of it," Ms Knox said.
A research project of a similar nature has been run in Sydney but the Hunter team believes this is the first program of its kind already in action in the community.
And state regional health minister Ryan Park said Healthy Beginnings complemented broader child development programs in NSW.
"The Healthy Beginnings program complements the existing Munch and Move program, a state-wide initiative since 2010 that promotes physical activity, healthy eating behaviours and reduced small screen time in children attending NSW early childhood centres," Mr Park said in a release.
"Receiving consistent advice from various sources gives parents with the tools and information they need to improve health outcomes for their children based on advice from trained health professionals."
