Mobile spas, dog walkers, personal trainers and other services provided or delivered right to your home may seem expensive and decadent, but when you consider the time, gasoline and sanity these services will save you, the benefits may outweigh their costs. There’s nothing frivolous about safety for your child, or healthy home-cooked meals for your family when you don’t have time to do it yourself. And, if an image consultant helps you feel confident in that important interview or new job, the service is priceless. So, have a look at our sample list. You may just decide to forego traffic and long line-ups and let the world come to you!

Kidstuff
For 13 years, Kiddie Proofers (416-785-KIDS, kiddieproofers.com) has given new parents peace of mind by offering at-home safety consultations. Owner Michael Rossman conducts many of the hour-long room-by-room inspections ($35) himself, paying eagle-eyed attention to hazardous objects and accidents waiting to happen, and offering parents safety tips as well as a list of appropriate childproof products (locks, gates) to help make their home a child-safe haven. Kiddie Proofers even offers a full installation service.

Hiring an in-house party service ensures your birthday boy or girl has the most memorable bash on the block. Whether you want to transform your backyard into a kid’s fantasy land, or hire clowns, a climbing wall, or a bouncy castle, check out party providers in TPT’s online birthdays and parties directory.

Calling home every half-hour to check up on the babysitter defeats the purpose of getting out. Custom Comfort Care (416-703-2539, customcomfortcare.ca) has an extensive roster of experienced sitters and nannies as well as in-home private duty nurses for mothers recovering from caesareans or twin births, or suffering post-partum depression.

Tracey Ruiz and her team, including, labour and postpartum doulas, childbirth educators and personal trainers at Birth Solutions (416-802-0572), are like family, helping couples through every step of childbirth and life with a new baby. Whether you need someone to calm your hubby while you’re in labour, get your baby to feed, or simply run errands for you when you’re first home from the hospital, Ruiz and her team are on call 24/7.

Comfy Cotton Diaper Service (1-888-759-3945, comfycotton.ca) answers the prayers of environmentally-conscious parents. Each week, 70 pre-folded soft cotton diapers along with a diaper pail and pail liner are delivered to your doorstep free of charge, and soiled diapers (which have been put through an antibacterial rinse so they don’t smell once they’re soiled) are picked up for washing ($14.95/70 diapers).

Instead of lining up at the mall amidst dozens of parents primping their children for ubiquitous photographs, call a portrait photographer to come to your home with lights and camera equipment in tow. Photographer Keith Pace Asciak of Flow Photo (416-436-3500, flowphoto.ca) allows brief nap time between shots if your angel becomes less than angelic (two hour packages with 50 four-by-six prints, start at $375). Dawn Liu-Smyth of Gurgles and Giggles (416-466-9723, gurglesandgiggles.ca) specializes in maternity shots and will capture you or your baby in both colour and black and white (packages with 24 proofs start at $200).

Food
The last thing you want to do when you’re consumed with burping, changing and feeding your newborn is cook. So, let personal chef Janet Craig of The Satisfied Soul (416-462-9995, satisfiedsoul.com) do the dirty work for you. She’ll sit down and plan two weeks worth of meals, catering to your specific dietary needs (diabetic, heart smart cooking), grocery shop, cook all the meals in your kitchen, package, label and freeze them, and clean up (starts at $375)!

“It’s so nice to come into a clean kitchen that smells of Janet’s baking,” says Heather MacNeil of Riverdale - a wife, mother of a two-year-old girl, and a busy doctor. “One of my favourite dishes is Janet’s roasted pork tenderloin with a red pepper glaze.” Chef Janet also caters dinner parties ($75/person).

For earth mothers who swear by organic meals, WOW Foods (Weekly Organic Wonder) (1-877-926-4426, mywowbox.com) packs weekly boxes in varying sizes (small, $35; medium, $45; large, $55) with fresh and healthy locally-grown produce, delivering them to your doorstep. Or, if you’re into bulk, Mr. Case (416-661-2273, mrcase.com) will deliver enough food to feed the after school crowd. For more than 20 years, they’ve been delivering more than 5,000 brand name supermarket products to homes across the GTA (orders under $75 incur a $5 delivery charge, orders over $75 incur a $2 delivery charge). Grocery Gateway (grocerygateway.com) lets you shop its virtual aisles (minimum $45 order, $9.95 delivery charge, extra $5 for phone orders). “Having groceries delivered straight to our kitchen while we continue to see clients saves us enough time to make the delivery charge worth it,” says Lynn Bennett, literary agent for TLA.

Salmon, Spinach and Feta Papillottes with vegetable rice anyone? You can get four gourmet meals serving two to three for $179 (a total of 12 servings) or 24 servings for $299. The meals can be stored three to four days in the fridge or two to three weeks in the freezer. With snap-on clear lids and specially coated aluminum trays, meals can be microwaved and leftovers easily stored. Visit todaysmenu.ca and enjoy their changing menu.

Restaurants On the Go (416-932-3999, restaurantsonthego.com) lets you enjoy the gastronomic delights from some of your favourite Toronto restaurants without having to leave home. With Il Fornello and Green Papaya among the 60-odd eateries you can choose to order from, takeout takes on a whole new meaning ($5.95 delivery fee, $15 minimum order).

Personal Needs
Jennifer Fineberg’s Exhale Mobile Spa (416-567-5032, exhalemobilespa.ca) not only brings manis, pedis, waxing and paraffin treatments to you, but you can also opt for more indulgent in-home treats such as her mineral-rich Dead Sea facial and her stress-quashing aromatherapy massage, complete with candles, relaxing music, slippers and robes. When you’re finished, you just have to roll over and fall asleep! Try out their BYOB (Bring Your Own Baby) spa parties for new moms!

Super trendy Diesel Fitness (416-595-9900, dieselfitness.ca) will send its super trendy trainers - who specialize in everything from weight loss and strength training to yoga and boxing - to your home, so you don’t have to hire a sitter when you want to work out (approximately $120/hour). You might also want to enlist one of Diesel’s massage therapists who come with massage table in tow, to knead away your knots, post-workout.

Personal trainer and kinesiologist, Tina Babaris, (416-823-5291) specializes in at- home pre- and post-natal workouts for women. Babaris, who is a Pilates mat instructor and hosts fitness seminars, works clients’ core muscles and gets post-pregnancy tummies tight again ($70/hour).

Direct-to-Home Dry Cleaning (416-429-5411, directtohome.ca) will pick up all your dirties and deliver them to your doorstep the following day, all fresh and clean. Creeds Dry Cleaning (416-923-2500, creeds.com), which also offers the same doorstep service, has useful tips on their website for removing ink and perspiration stains. You can even email Creeds’ “stain doctor” with any cleaning-related queries plaguing you.

For style-challenged mothers returning to work, Elizabeth Cheung (416-966-3773) will turn you from drab to fab in no time! Cheung, who has been doing hair for 20 years and makeup and wardrobe consulting for the past ten, makes personal visits to her clients’ homes to cut and colour hair (starting at $75), apply makeup ($60), give makeup application lessons ($80) and transform ho-hum wardrobes into Vogue-worthy ones.

Katherine Parris and her team at Parris Concierge (1-888-418-1188, parrisconcierge.com) will take care of just about anything you don’t have time for, from running errands for you, no matter how menial, buying and wrapping gifts for your hard-to-buy-for friends, planning and catering parties, and even planning a romantic evening for you and your honey at home (babysitter and personal chef included!)

Home, Health and Pets
Custom Maids has been putting the polish on Toronto homes for nearly 25 years. For $88, a trained, bonded and insured cleaner will whip an average size home into shape in four hours. That’s a general cleaning of kitchen, bath and living/bedrooms, plus any large job you specify - oven, fridge, or laundry. Yes, they do windows. custommaids.ca 416-488-5254. Maid-For-You (416-691-9221, maid-for-you-inc.com) not only sends housekeepers to clean your home, but they’ll send a team to do post-reno cleanups or help pack and organize your home before a move (one maid, you supply the cleaners and equipment, $19/hour, 4 hour minimum).

Nothing spoils a dinner party quicker than having to wash the dishes afterwards, but Pat’s Party Rentals (1-888-635-4494, patspartyrentals.net) spares you that misery by delivering fine china, and freshly polished cutlery and glassware before your soirÄe and picking up all the dirty dishes afterwards. “One phone call and tables, cloths, dishes, glasses, everything I need arrives at my door ready to use, and cleaning up is my favourite part of renting. Just pop everything back into the crates or boxes and off they go in Pat’s truck the next day,” says Lynda Simmons, romance writer and mother of two.

Is household stuff hemming you in? You can call on Brenda Borenstein of Organized Zone Inc., who offers decluttering and re-organization services, as well as space-saving and storage solutions. 416- 665-2165, info@organizedzone.com

Cherri Hurst of Hurst Class Organizing also offers help for clutter-bound parents. “Having lived through the chaos of three boys, full-time work and running a home, I know what they are going through,” says Hurst, who promises to organize areas as small as a drawer or as large as a house. 416-241-7618, cherri@hurstclass.com hurstclass.com

Artist Kristen Matthews of Kristen Matthews Portrait, Murals and Fine Art ((905) 697-6303, kristenmatthews.com) translates her love of love of children and animals into whimsical murals for nursery and kids’ rooms. She’ll custom paint images to suit your tastes and even paint images from photographs you provide (as long as they’re not commercially re-purposed).

When old furniture and family mementoes threaten to explode out of your garage, call 1-800-got junk. Two people will arrive within a two-hour time frame, load up your stuff, clean up after themselves and move on. Rates are based on your location, the amount and type of junk you have. Got Junk will take wood, construction debris, appliances, furniture, concrete, shingles, appliances, branches, soil and sod. Bin There Dump That, a mini disposal service, supplies containers from four to 14 yards long, which are placed on your property using a unique roll off system. For $325.00, customers can rent a nine yard bin, which holds two tons of material. Restrictions apply. Call 905 823-8550, or visit bintheredumpthat.com.

When your oldest is running a fever and the thought of carting the rest of your brood to a walk-in clinic causes you to break out in a sweat, call MedVisit Doctors Housecall Service (416-631-3000, medvisit.ca). A doctor will arrive at your home within one to four hours of your call (dispatches from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.), provide a thorough exam, call prescriptions into your pharmacy if required and provide a copy of the medical report upon request. The best part: the service is covered by OHIP and is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week!

Stressed out moms who are too busy to pick up prescriptions can enlist Pharmacy.ca (416-960-7768, pharmacy.ca) to deliver prescriptions ($4 delivery charge in the GTA). This fully licensed Ontario pharmacy will deliver your order within two-to-three business days. Just call in your prescription or place an online order, providing your physician and health plan info.

When you’re at the office, plagued with guilt for leaving Rufus, your terrier, alone all day, call Aviva Chepurny and her staff of animal-loving dog walkers and pet sitters at Barking Along Pet Care Services (416-445-0300, barkingalong.com). All staff are trained in emergency pet first aid and are fully bonded and insured. “We endured a home renovation and Barking Along was extremely flexible to accommodate (our chocolate Labrador Retriever) Clyde with our ever-changing needs including last minute daycare and walk schedule changes,” says working mom Kerry Owen. Barking Along also handles pet’s vet appointments and vacation care.

Super Scoopers (416-759-0702, superscoopers.ca) are in the business of taking care of your dog’s private business. They’ll clean up and get rid of those unwanted backyard presents your pooch leaves according to your needs: on a weekly, twice weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis (Starts at $10 for weekly pick up).

Whatever your reason for using at-home services - traffic, deadlines, or overwhelming fatigue, you’re bound to be happy with the results: more time to do what you want, fewer hassles, and peace-of-mind.

Although Toronto-based writer and editor, Heather Buchan, doesn’t have children or a dog (she lives with a temperamental cat, though), researching this story has made both prospects a lot more enticing!