How the SUPER RICH give birth
Clue: they hire a ‘mummy concierge’ to do it all for them
THe most tearful calls invariably come at night, causing Tiffany norris to startle awake as she scrabbles for the phone on her bedside table.
The women wanting her attention might have prolific careers in law and finance and earn six-figure salaries — but they’re also pregnant for the first time and, alone with their thoughts before dawn breaks, are as anxious about having a baby as any other mum-to-be.
‘I’ve had high-powered women, used to giving presentations to thousands, sob down the phone to me at 2am about anything and everything — from not knowing how to set up the cot, to what colour they should paint the nursery,’ says Tiffany. ‘They’re the kind of women who don’t like to appear vulnerable, but they’re going through something they’ve never been through before. I’m here to advise without judging. Much to my husband’s horror, my work phone is always on.’
Welcome to the rarefied world of the mummy concierge. Increasing numbers of wealthy mums-to-be are outsourcing every aspect of their (very glamorous) pregnancies and the earliest years of motherhood to women such as Tiffany.
A baby name nobody’s ever heard of before? A mummy concierge can sort it. A cot engraved with the family crest? not a problem. A Mercedes S-class to deliver you to hospital when labour starts? The chauffeur is on standby.
perhaps most enviable, however, the mummy concierge offers emotional support on tap, no matter what time of
day, or, indeed, night. for a price, of course — high-end mummy concierges command six-figure salaries of their own, and have waiting lists of celebrities, society names and some of the city’s most influential businesswomen.
The concierge industry — providing elite services to those prepared to pay for an easier lifestyle, and estimated to be worth £589 million worldwide by 2025 — might have started with hotels and restaurants at the turn of the millennium, but it is the baby sector that is now booming.
Top employers in the States, including American express and fifth Third Bank, have started providing maternity concierges to their pregnant staff. These concierges source everything from buggies to the best obstetricians so workers can carry on their day-jobs unimpeded.
And while mummy concierging has been altered by the pandemic — with online consultations often replacing face-toface ones — it certainly hasn’t been thwarted. If anything, it has only made rich women more likely to seek support.
Tiffany concedes that many of her clients inhabit a parallel pregnancy universe in which spending £40,000 on a hand-painted cot or insisting on a trilingual nanny is par for the course.
‘To some of my clients, this isn’t excessive. They want the best care possible,’ says the glamorous but good-humoured mother-of-two, who had the idea for her mummy concierge service in 2017 while pregnant with her son, rupert.
‘In a state about everything’, she recalls having a ‘meltdown’ in John Lewis while deciding which pram to buy.
‘I remember seeing all these buggies, with tears rolling down my face. Did I need big or small wheels? Where was the brake? I was very aware that I didn’t think salespeople would give independent advice,’ says Tiffany, 38.
Previously a ‘proposal planner’ who helped people get engaged glamorously, Tiffany adds: ‘It suddenly occurred to me there are lots of people planning weddings, but nobody to help plan your baby.’
So She forged contacts with high-end boutiques and parenting experts in upmarket West London, where she lived at the time, and ‘word of mouth spread quickly’ about her new service, The Mummy Concierge.
Most of her clients are still based in Chelsea, Knightsbridge and Kensington, such as socialite and Made In Chelsea star Tabitha Willett, 28, who enlisted Tiffany’s help for ottilie, the daughter she had with nightclub owner fraser Carruthers, a friend of Prince harry, last year.
Tabitha has praised her services: ‘Tiffany’s care and initiative is just so lovely. She has been an incredibly valuable asset on my journey to motherhood.’
And there are many more household names among Tiffany’s clients: ‘yes, people would probably recognise them, but I sign non-disclosures,’ she says loyally.
her typical hourly rate is £120 and her clients largely split into two groups. There are ambitious, time-strapped working women determined ‘to be as brilliant at motherhood as they have been in their careers’. Many have left motherhood late, or gone through IVf, explains Tiffany; and ‘because pregnancy has been a bigger struggle, they’re more anxious to get everything right’.
Then there are the stay-athome wives of wealthy husbands who see their new addition as another excuse to splash the cash. ‘They start as they want to go on and become an expert before their baby is even born,’ says Tiffany.
her job requires ingenuity as well as a bottomless budget. Take the mum who tasked her with coming up with the perfect baby name, with one crucial caveat — nobody in the world was to have used it before.
Tiffany deployed a linguist and branding experts to form a ‘think tank to discuss whether the name would suit both a baby and a prime minister’. So cloaked in secrecy is the final decision that she hasn’t even told her husband.
TIffAny, who lives in oxfordshire with her husband and their two children, rupert and ophelia, one, travels extensively with clients to help babyproof homes and test items such as buggies in their intended environments. Two years ago, one family flew her first-class to their holiday home in Dubai to prepare it for their newborn.
Tiffany’s main tasks during her four-day stay in the ‘exquisite’ eight-bedroom mansion, with cinema and swimming pool, were sourcing ‘beautifully carved’ toys — ‘They didn’t want flashing noisy plastic toys, the sort babies like,’ she says — and interviewing childcare: ‘They wanted a holiday nanny 24/7, so I had to book three.’
unsurprisingly, none of them were fresh out of school looking for pocket money. often, Tiffany is told nannies have to have oxbridge degrees or speak three languages.
‘I have a lot of wealthy Italian clients. It’s important their nannies speak Italian and english, and often another language as well to help with their child’s development,’ she explains.
‘We might think that’s excessive, but it’s common among a certain type of mother. It doesn’t mean they love their babies any less.’
Part of Tiffany’s job is preparing the nursery. one client wanted a £40,000 hand-painted cot from a luxury children’s furniture company. others have asked for their family crest embroidered on muslin squares. Personalised bedlinen is de
rigueur. one mum wanted a £1,000 blanket. ‘To me that seemed quite expensive,’ Tiffany says diplomatically.
for a couple having a baby called Peter, she decorated the nursery in a Peter rabbit theme. for a London family who loved the countryside, she sourced an unusual toy for the newborn’s elder sibling: ‘They wanted a rocking horse, but their toddler didn’t much like horses, so I sourced a rocking deer.’ Contacts with impossibly exclusive suppliers are a pivotal part of the