Night nanny here of 15 years (and also employed one for the first 9-12 weeks with all of my own kids). You are likely going to want 4 nights per week at least for the first 4-6 weeks. There is a steep learning curve, recovery time, and absolute exhaustion in the early days. The more nights you have up front, the more consistent opportunity the nanny has to guide you and baby to a healthy sleep schedule, the better.

I’d def go with a night time Doula 3x weekly for 12-16 weeks. I had one and her charge was about $45 hourly from 9PM-6AM OR 10PM-7AM.

Anonymous wrote:I'd do the 3 nights and do them all in a row. This way your body has a chance to really rest and recover.

+1

I recently had a night nanny. Originally we planned to just do 2 nights/week but she made our lives so much better that we increased it to 4 nights/week. She brought the baby m to me for the first feed and then she gave him a bottle of pumped milk for the second feed. It was easier for me to go back to sleep after a 2am feed than a 5am feed since the latter was too close to morning. My supply was fine and going a 6 hour stretch didn’t clog my milk ducts too much.

We stopped after 7 weeks because my baby was only waking once in the night at that point.

Anonymous wrote:I'd do the night nanny five nights a week for three weeks or whatever the math is. The night nannies are the ones who get the baby on a schedule. Having them come twice a week will accomplish nothing productive.

3 week olds can get on a schedule?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you going to breastfeed? That would make a difference to me.

OP if this is your first, you may not realize yet how much your supply might be affected by taking nights off and/or how your boobs might explode and wake you up anyway. Not at all saying a night nanny isn’t still helpful, just might factor in.

OP here - it is my first but I do understand that. I don’t plan on EBF and if my supply is impacted in the name of sleep, so be it. Sleep is really important to my mental health.

Anonymous wrote:Are you going to breastfeed? That would make a difference to me.

OP if this is your first, you may not realize yet how much your supply might be affected by taking nights off and/or how your boobs might explode and wake you up anyway. Not at all saying a night nanny isn’t still helpful, just might factor in.

Are you going to breastfeed? That would make a difference to me.

are you not nursing?

I'd do the 3 nights and do them all in a row. This way your body has a chance to really rest and recover.

I'd do the night nanny five nights a week for three weeks or whatever the math is. The night nannies are the ones who get the baby on a schedule. Having them come twice a week will accomplish nothing productive.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there a reason you guys have enough to afford a night nanny but will send to daycare before age 1 instead Of hiring a nanny? The sickness is brutal

A night nanny will cost $7k for what we’re planning, and an extra 6.5 months of a nanny would cost $20k+…a lot more money. We also really value sleep. DH and I both get a lot of PTO and will be able to absorb the sick days.

Got it, in that I would try to stretch out night nanny for as many weeks as possible. Diminishing returns with multiple days each week and will be even harder to go to zero from 3 nights

Anonymous wrote:Is there a reason you guys have enough to afford a night nanny but will send to daycare before age 1 instead Of hiring a nanny? The sickness is brutal

A night nanny will cost $7k for what we’re planning, and an extra 6.5 months of a nanny would cost $20k+…a lot more money. We also really value sleep. DH and I both get a lot of PTO and will be able to absorb the sick days.

Is there a reason you guys have enough to afford a night nanny but will send to daycare before age 1 instead Of hiring a nanny? The sickness is brutal

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?