TRAINED MOM TEACHES OTHER WOMEN HOW TO BABY.

Byline: Brent Hopkins Staff Writer

TARZANA - Jill Campbell needed advice when she had her baby; instead, she got a romance novel.

Though trained in child psychology, she didn't know much about how to get a kid to sleep through the night. Sleep-deprived and stressed out, the young mother implored her friends for advice, but all they could suggest was that she read to get her mind off things. Frustrated, she figured there had to be a better way to learn.

Eight years later, her sleepless nights and crying baby became the foundation for a business.

``My closest friends didn't have babies and I had a very colicky one,'' she said. ``I felt very isolated and very alone, so this grew out of that.''

A child psychologist by trade, Campbell recently started How To Baby, an instructional company to teach moms the mysteries of raising their newly arrived kids. Her work uniform features Oscar the Grouch designs and her target clients measure their age in weeks. Group discussions involve singing ``The Itsy Bitsy Spider.'' Crying invariably breaks out, which she combats with a practiced smile and an elevated tone.

``I always knew I wanted to stay at home with my kids after I got pregnant,'' said Andrea Supand, a 33-year-old former art director now devoting all her time to 4-month-old Isaiah. ``I didn't know it would be a whole other job.''

After years in private practice and leading one-time parenting seminars, Campbell started the company with a $35,000 loan, hoping to help moms in the same spot she found herself in with a newborn. Mothers and babies attend hour-long classes to learn the tricks of getting a crying child to sleep, the importance of singing and dancing and whether to sleep alongside a newborn or to bed them in a crib.

``Sometimes, motherhood can be an island,'' said Kristine Theodoratos, a 32-year-old Northridge mother there with her 3-month-old son Constantine. ``Unless you're talking to someone who's got a baby the same age, you don't always know what to do. With all the questions that come to you in the middle of the night, it's good to know there's other people going through the same things.''

Even the smallest issues, like whether it's better to nurse before bedtime or to sing for a bit, become important. But small questions can lead to a fairly good enterprise. By dispensing advice and providing moms with the chance to network, Campbell expects to gross around $60,000 in her first year in business.

``You can hear from an expert that something's the way to go, then you can hear from another mom who's been through it to see how it really goes,'' said Kari Edwards, a 41-year-old psychologist who's trying to learn as much as she possibly can about raising 7-week-old Aidan before she returns to work at Amgen Inc. ``Getting that reality check that everything that's supposed to be easy and miraculous can be a little challenging sometimes is really nice.''

Brent Hopkins, [phone]

brent.hopkins(at)dailynews.com

Info to Go:

How to Baby

17401 Ventura Blvd., Suite B-18

Encino

[phone]

www.howtobabyclasses.com

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

(color) Jill Campbell teaches educational and support classes for new moms at her business How to Baby in Encino.

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer

Box:

Info to Go (see text)