About us

Mother’s Little Helpers was started by Lucy Fyfe and Deborah Kwan, and launched at the beginning of 2011. Lucy’s a single mum of three, and Deborah had just had her first baby. We wanted to find a way for us to support ourselves financially, hopefully without having to consign our kids to permanent daycare!

The basic idea that we started with was when we noticed there were a lot of women in Cambridge raising children far from friends and family. Often, unless they were already quite settled here they were having to do without the kind of support family usually provides.

So we came up with the idea of providing 'bundles' of support services that could be given to new mums as a present, rather than the usual teddies, rompers, plastic toys and whatnot that everybody gets when a baby arrives. Things like someone dropping round with a home cooked meal in the evening when it all gets too much, or coming over and doing some cleaning before Mum-in-law turns up. (Even better if grandparents will pay or buy you some vouchers.) We also wanted to be able to support our clients over the phone if they ever needed just to chat to someone who’d been through it before.

Because we also wanted to help people minimise the ecologically damaging (and annoying) clutter and overconsumption that you tend to get trapped into when you have children, we're also providing a nappy laundry service and a sling library, and making our food deliveries by bike. We did also have an equipment library for large baby equipment but it proved unpopular and expensive to insure - but we are still committed to helping you find stuff without buying it new.

We're also keen to work with other women who are, like us, mums combining kids and work, since we reckon we can pool our resources and look after each other’s kids if we get stuck with childcare, and hours here and there are a good way of feeling your way back into work. If you like the sound of working with us, now or in the future, we’d love to hear from you.