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Depends if you’re breastfeeding and how hard it is. My first baby I would have liked help for 6 weeks. By 6 weeks baby only woke once a night.
With babies 2 and 3 I would have preferred a nanny during the day to care for my other kids. My milk was so much stronger. My babies nursed and immediately went to sleep and so did I (I was bone tired!). It wasn’t a chore to wake when all I had to do was nurse, then go back to sleep. I never left the bed, just reached into the bassinet. |
You are correct about proof reading before submitting but wrong about American women. |
Do you think most have a baby nurse at some point? I think you are living in a bubble. |
I think every single one of you would love nothing more than to have a live-in person who would do everything for you and that you can do nothing but bark commands to your grossly underpaid, frequently undocumented, all-in-one nanny, cook, laundress, maid/housekeeper while you have a six month maternity vacation. I've witnessed this many times. |
This is such a weird take. I am not American and have lived in many, many countries and think American women are among the least likely to have this kind of arrangement. It's out there, for the elite, but hardly common and most American women also have less family support than is common in other cultures. |
Can someone please explain this? |
It's a nanny who will work at night so the mother isn't bothered by her newborn's needs other than being a wet nurse. |
Bro slavery ended in the US 150+ years ago. Oh, and six month maternity leaves don’t exist outside of tech. |
So what is a father, then? A lump of useless coal who isn’t bothered by his newborn’s needs at night because his sex slave, I mean wife, is tending them. |
| We kept ours for 4 months. It was a great amount of time and would not have wanted longer. |
Such a weird (and uncompassionate) take. I can’t imagine having a baby nurse, both financially or emotionally, but I have nothing against women who do and I did have my mother come to stay when I had my babies. For me, I wanted my home back and didn’t need so much help 1-3 weeks after the birth but I really appreciated having someone to hold the baby/clean my kitchen/distract my toddler/etc around those first couple days so I totally understand where people are coming from when they say they want more help. |
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Former Newborn Care Specialist here (the name baby nurse isn’t industry standard since they are typically nowhere near the qualifications to be an RN).
So it depends on what your goals are. If both parents need to be functional during the day right away either due to going back to work or having older sibling(s) to care for, and you want to ensure you NEVER have to wake at night with the baby, then you would need to formula feed. If you are breastfeeding, you will still need to wake 1-3 times depending on baby’s age, but what a lot of moms do is feed the baby, put them down, then get ready for bed herself and then pump once before mom goes to bed. That milk becomes the feed for baby’s first wake, then when mom wakes again naturally she pumps again and we repeat. The other option is for the NCS to bring baby to you in bed, you text when they are done and I can take over and handle burping, changing, soothing back to sleep. The tricky thing is that every baby is different and there are some babies who very early on are good sleepers naturally. On the other hand, there are some babies who are very tough to soothe, or may have complications like reflux or colic. So the risk of hiring for the longer term is wasting money, but the risk of hiring for the shorter term is that most NCSs will not be available if you change your mind and want more help. The most typical for families who want the safe bet is about 6 months bc by then the majority of babies will be STTN for at least 8 hours (some will be able to do 12 hours, but some will still need one overnight feed, esp if in a growth spurt). |
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Ideally 12 weeks which is when a good baby nurse can get a baby sleeping and on a solid schedule.
We had a baby nurse and while it’s great, eventually you don’t want someone in your house every evening. Your life becomes more routine and you’re ready for her to leave. |
But that’s exactly when the four month sleep regression begins and most babies wake 100 times a night And their previous schedule goes out the window. We made the mistake of only booking 12 weeks. I would never do that again. You need 6 months. |
| I recommend against signing a very long contract. We had our night nanny for 8 weeks because that’s what we could afford. And as it turned out, the baby began sleeping through the night the following week (eating at 5am and then going back to sleep until 9). By 12 weeks, he was sleeping from 7pm to 8am. Even if you have lots of money, you wouldn’t want to waste it if you luck out with a good sleeper. |