Anonymous wrote:Londoner here and we paid our night nanny 20GBP/hour for 20 hours a day, 4 days a week. So she'd work Monday-Thursday for 20 hours each day (she was off between 7am-11am) and it SAVED us. 400 GBP/day, 1600 GBP/week. My granny paid and I was on mat leave but really, it allowed me to establish breastfeeding, sleep, have a life and be sane. I'm very grateful.

So the person responsible for caring for your baby was running on less than 4 hours of sleep a day? That's crazy! I thought the whole reason new moms hire a night nanny is so that they (the new mom) wouldn't be caring for the baby completely sleep deprived. So the baby is still being cared for by a sleep deprived person?

Oh here.

Thanks for the input everyone. I would be fine with the nanny resting on the couch or recliner. I was mostly concerned that they would be sleeping, then baby starts crying, and everyone gets woken up by the time the nanny tends to the baby. That would defeat the purpose of it all. I'll have to be clear that I want the nanny to be alert.

SLEEPING is not the norm, but resting while baby sleeps absolutely is. No night nannies are cuddling in with a sleep mask and out cold. But yes, sitting in a dark room for 10-12 hours with a sound machine, the norm is absolutely to rest and close your eyes while baby sleeps and all the chores are done- folding laundry, washing bottle or pump parts, stocking the nursery.

-Night nanny for 15 years, on the board of a Newborn Care Specialist professional development group with 1200 members, mom of 3 that had night nannies with all my babies, have worked through 8+ agencies. I don't know anyone, barring the actual RNs with medially fragile infants, that stays up all night.

I hired a night nurse with my second and highly recommend it. Similar to you OP, my husband had just started a new job and didn’t have any leave, and needed to be 100% at work. Also had a toddler that I needed to be functional for.

We paid about $30-$35 per hour, 8 hour shifts from 10pm-6am. I started it the night we came home, and started with 5x per week, then 4x, then 3x. After 4 weeks I felt healed and the baby was on a better routine so we didn’t need the night nanny anymore.

Anonymous wrote:Sleeping isn't the norm. A lot of providers like to tell families that so they can sleep themselves but it's not the norm.

+1. Baby nurse stays up all night (12 hrs) then goes home to sleep.

We didn’t pay more for awake care and we specified we did not want to hear the baby cry— the purpose of the night nurse was to ensure that I got as much sleep as possible and the baby got on a good night feeding schedule as early as possible. Most new moms will wake up if their baby cries so what’s the point of having someone there?

Sleeping isn't the norm. A lot of providers like to tell families that so they can sleep themselves but it's not the norm.