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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We have money set aside for a night nanny that would cover 3 nights/week for 8 weeks. We could also drop down to 2 nights per week and extend longer, or drop to 2 nights/8 weeks and add in a couple weeks of unpaid leave at the end of my mat leave (without those extra weeks, baby would be entering daycare at 5.5 months). Which would you pick?[/quote]

I never had a night nurse but thought I would share my experience.

Many newborn babies sleep a lot.  What a lot of people don't realise (after they've congratulated themselves on what a good sleeper they have), is that often starts to change after about 4 weeks.  I definitely found it got harder at that point.  For the first few weeks, I just slept when my baby slept (including with daytime naps) and we were fine. He was in a crib next to my side of the bed so it was easy to feed him then get back to sleep. The help that was most useful was having a cleaner and buying in meals.  I had an induced birth with a bit of tearing but I just took it easy and was not overly ambitious.

Things got a bit harder once DH was back at work and my baby started sleeping less.  At that point, I also started expressing milk as it would enable DH to do a late feed so I could get to bed earlier and sleep for a decent stretch. My baby was not consistent about what time he would wake up and sometimes he would be quite wakeful after a feed. At THIS point, it was harder.  I realised that I needed to try to encourage a routine that would preserve my sanity and help us get into a better rhythm.   I followed a particular book and it was fine.  However, I do think that if I had needed any professional help, it would have been most useful at that point.  If you are going back back to work when your baby is almost 6 months old, you really do need a good routine established which is not necessarily easy.  It is easy to doubt yourself.  Some professional help at that point might be more helpful.

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