to find the whole idea of a maternity nanny wrong?

[allthegearnoidea]

let me put this in context, have limited experience myself and my SIL is one, though from what she tells me I find the whole idea so wrong...

she says that the women she works for 'love their babies but they love their sleep too', that the babies should be in a routine by the time she leaves after 12 weeks, ideally sleeping through.

Now my concerns are that these little babies won't develop really secure attachments to their mums as when they cry in the night they are attended to by a stranger who will disappear in a few weeks time... that 3 months is too soon to expect routine of that kind, that hello- don't have a baby if you want perfect restful nights. It seems to me to go against nature and instinctful parenting. I couldn't have imagined letting someone else go to my crying newborn, my stomach lurched whenevr he cried, I was a fierce lioness over him!

I'm not syaing I'm perfect, who is? Also it's no picninc having a newborn, but why would you want someone else to have precious moments with your little one.

I'm reday for the onslaught and I appreciate that many people use maternity nannies and am really interesed in how it works in real life and why people use them, if it were me I'd have a got a cleaner to do the crappy jobs so that if I wanted to slob in my dressing gown the next day with my son, who cares, all the jobs are done! Let me know your thought/ experiences.

p.s. my SIL is an idiot and does exagerate so apologies if I'm way of the mark here! x

my DH is, too, onepiece. he was like a duck to water with it and still is.

he was SAHD for 4 years and will be again as soon as - i plan to go back to legal secretarial work when DS is about 4 months old because he truly enjoys staying home and is sooooo much better suited to all aspects of it than i am. even potty training.

Oh yes, totally agree about the support. That's what I was kind of groping about to say, really, in an inept swept away with retrospective horror kind of way.

Is it a kind of female schaden freude that says women must suffer? Does it go back to the garden of Eden in their psyche? This idea that it must be hard or it's not right. Why instead not ease burdens and have help?

I had a nanny from a week - 2 weeks beause I was back at full time work then but not someone who lived in. I like having out own space adn time. At 6om tonight when the workmen and cleaner left and it was just us it was more relaxing. So I did not actively want someone living in and we never had a spare room but virtually every man in this country dumps his children on someone else (his stepford wife equivalent/servile female partner) and no one ever criticises men for doing such outsourcing/dumping do they?

Some weekends I work (am a nurse) and "dump" my dcs on my dh. Many of my friends feel this is outrageous [anger] - referring to "poor mrlollipop" and other rubbish. Oh it makes me furious. Ha, none of them say "oh poor onepiece" when on some of the weekdays he pushes off to work leaving me with the dcs dumped on me.

We are a team. This works for us. And ultimately the world (and quite possible mnet) would be a more settled place if we just accepted that all families do things differently. This includes the fact that some families have various types of "help". I don't have specific "help" although I do buy a lot of M&S food - I prefer to do the cleaning myself and have someone else do the cooking.

Those women who tolerate sexist men and think because someone is male he cannot do 50% of what is do be done at home have only themselves to blame for the lot they end up with.

If I could I would like a postnatal doula, I wouldn't want the model of maternity nanny that OP's SIL seems to offer - but perhaps some so called maternity nannies are more like pn doulas. I also watched the Norland Nannies series on Discovery and they actually mentioned night nannies and what sounded like a more daytime support role.

I'm hoping when my 2nd baby arrives that I'll get help with other things so I can concentrate on him and getting bf right this time. As I'm quite lucky with paid maternity leave and have the option to have 28 weeks on full pay then SMP for 11, I'm going to keep ds1 going to his childminder, though I'd like to find times when I can take him out during the day as well and do something fun with both in tow.

my dp has always done half the work when they were babies. Now he gave up work to be a full time carer for dd who is 4. I'd still like a nanny cos dd is a 2 person job and doesn't sleep! She screams so loudly the whole house is kept awake!

I love the newborn bit but its nice to have a bit of help isnt it?

Not sure how a maternity nurse would help you sleep through if you were breastfeeding though, but maybe they have ways and means

Expat - I know you write your last post last night (so are probably not here yet!) but your post really struck a chord - the whole "you made your bed" bit. Yep that was me (still is on the whole). I too was 100% convinced I had made the worst mistake of my life having a baby - and I did not feel any love for him - just terror, guilt, a crushing sense of responsibility and utter dark loneliness. I KNEW I could not do this. That was the from the first night, let alone three months later when I was hallucinating from lack of sleep, crying on and off all the time and desperate to help a baby with reflux who had no idea how to sleep - and I know I am not unique; I just thought I was then.

For those who found it magical - great. I am beyond envious and I certainly wish you no ill, but to flatly critise others' choices without knowing their situation and reasons is just, well, smug and ignorant.

What a strange idea we have that in order to prove your worth as a mother you need to suffer. After DS was born, we stayed in the wonderful hospital for 5 days for breastfeeding support and one on one care and then when we came out I had a maternity nurse for the first few weeks. Not because I was ill, or because I had had a bad birth or any other reason. Just because I wanted the support and wanted to be able to spend my days with DS without feeling beyond knackered. I don't feel guilty for this decision. Why should I? DS was well looked after; I breastfed on demand and his sleep has really been great. We are both very, very happy.

Does any of this mean I love him less or that I am not as good a mummy as anyone who did it all on their own? Seriously?

ps we also have a cleaner twice a week so I really am lazy. Does this mean I love my husband less too because I don't pick us his socks??

Fliz, I did not have a maternity nurse so cannot really answer the question but I think the way it works is that they bring the baby to you and maybe do the nappy bits etc. Certainly I know that part of their role is to help mothers with breastfeeding if they are having problems etc.

pity this service is only avaialble to the well off

I agree Needmorecoffee. You need help at that time. Some people are lucky enough to have close family around who can help but for the rest of us £££ is the only other way. We are not really well off so the money we spent (A LOT!) caused a VERY sharp intake of breath but it was worth it and I am lucky I was in a postion to do it. Not everyone is and we are supposed to just get through it as though it was a breeze and "instinctful".

Sleep deprivation is not a form of torture for nothing.

I could have done with it after number 3's section. Had dd1 who was 2.10, ds1 who was 18 months and a section with ds2.
dh took 3 days off work after I got back from the hozzie (2 days in hozzie) and it was awful. No family and no money for help.

"What a strange idea we have that in order to prove your worth as a mother you need to suffer"

Err - I don't think those of us who have reservations about the role of matenity nurses do think mothers should 'suffer'. I think the polar opposite. I think women should be pampered and looked after in the postnatal period. I'm all for women having domestic help and help with their other children. It can also help to have someone around to help you get breastfeeding established. They've always done this in other cultures - have a six week period of 'lying in' where all the new mum's domestic responsibilities are taken off her so she can concentrate on her baby and recover from the birth.

But that's not traditionally the sort of support that maternity nannies provide. Maternity nannies theoretically are there to care for the baby - to take the baby off the mother to allow her to sleep, and to do things like changing/bathing etc. I appreciate they're also supposed to help with breastfeeding - though many don't have any specific training in this role, which I find a bit worrying.

My feelings are that being involved in the practical care of a baby - handling the baby a lot, changing it, feeding it, holding it and frequent feeding helps with bonding in a fairly major way for a lot of people, also helping build confidence in your ability to care for your baby in your own way. Having another person handling the baby a lot in the first few weeks - well, I don't think it's what babies would choose. They're instinctively drawn towards their mothers - they recognise their mothers by sound, smell and touch and are primed to want to be with them.

And by the way - before anyone comes back with 'I was too ill to care for my baby' - there are obvious situations where a mum might be simply unable to provide basic care for her baby while recovering from the birth.... that's different. And I'm not making a case for mums having no help. As I said - I'm all for help with other children, cleaning, cooking etc......

Wanted to add - that the first 2 or 3 weeks of being with your new baby (the period that people most commonly employ maternity nannies) is the 'falling in love time' when you are getting to know the new love of your life. Hence the whole idea of a 'baby moon'. If you look at it this way then having a maternity nanny is a bit like taking your cleaner (you know,the one who picks up your husband's socks), or a sex therapist (who'll stand at the end of the bed giving you tips to improve your technique.....) on honeymoon with you.

fabs - I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your views on the role of a mother in those first few weeks (god knows DS might as well have been stitched on to me!)but have you read this thread?

For many people those first few weeks have nothing to do with falling in love and everything to do with feeling as though your life was over.

I think people have maternity nannies for all sorts of reasons. Some may be practical, some emotional, some, yes, might be "can't be arsed with the baby". But it is not black and white.

I will forever feel cheated that I had no 'baby moon' but no amount of holding and tending my baby then made me bond.

YANBU

I enjoyed my honeymoon and bonded with DH much better having had a decent night's sleep than I would have if I'd been up all night every night for the 3 weeks.
My expereience of a maternity nurse (and she was a brilliant one, where as I'm sure there are some shockers) was that she showed me techniques for bathing, changing, dressing and calming the baby that made me far more confident as a mother. She was hugely supportive and expereinced re promoting bf.
Also, it was very clear that my exhaustion (she only came once a week) was part of the problem I had soothing and relaxing my baby - he had the most incredible soporific effect on him.
She did one expressed night feed for me and the sleep helped me to enjoy motherhood much more.

Agree elfriend, and I doubt that "not being bothered with the baby" is a common reason.

Bubba - so glad your experience was a happy one.

So much of motherhood has been taken up by thinking 'I would be enjoying this if I wasn't so tired'

The only thing that the newborn period did for me was that I was occasionally so tired I couldn't spring off the sofa with sheer knuckle-chewing boredom with breastfeeding (there is a limit to how many episodes of ER even I can watch at one time), so sometimes I sat there for a bit longer than I otherwise would have done, and perhaps my poor ds occasionally got some milk.

I would have KILLED for another woman, preferably a friend rather than a stranger but needs must, living in my house at that time, with an actual defined job involving tidying the house, chatting to me so that I would have been happy to sit and try and feed.

The only trouble would have been, it would have been a horrible shock when she left, and everyone would have expected 'the worst bit' to be over and would have been less helpful. Can't think it would have been much worse than it actually was though, the toughest bit of the lot for me was 6 months - 18 months.

'Wanted to add - that the first 2 or 3 weeks of being with your new baby (the period that people most commonly employ maternity nannies) is the 'falling in love time' when you are getting to know the new love of your life. Hence the whole idea of a 'baby moon'. If you look at it this way then having a maternity nanny is a bit like taking your cleaner (you know,the one who picks up your husband's socks), or a sex therapist (who'll stand at the end of the bed giving you tips to improve your technique.....) on honeymoon with you. '

Not everyone lives on Planet Fabsmum (milkgoddessmakesthefinestmilk).

Therefore, the same approach isn't going to suit everyone.

Vive la difference!

I suppose I can't get my head around the idea that the tiredness you feel as a new mum is somehow pathological and psychologically harmful. Even when you are in good health following the birth (ie not anaemic, suffering from postnatal depression or psychosis, or suffering from a postnatal infection or some other major complication), and you are not being overburdened with other work like caring for other children, housework etc. Not when it's an average newborn (I appreciate there are some babies who are particularly difficult re: sleep, I know one mum whose newborn only slept a total of 9 hrs in any 24 hour period, which was incredibly tough for her. I'm not talking about situations with mega sleepless babies, just normal newborns)

I sometimes suspect that we're 'sold' the idea that the sleeplessness and tiredness that goes with having a newborn is pathological as a way of selling us things: bottlefeeding, Gina Ford's routines, the services of maternity nannies.........

Re: my own situation - I went back to work three days a week when my first was 5 weeks old and still bf 3 times a night. By the time I had my third I was studying and working and feeding three times in the night plus sometimes getting up to my toddler. I'm not a hard nut and I was tired, but I don't feel that tiredness damaged me in any way or damaged my relationship with my children.

I was ill earlier this year and was catastrophically tired for a period of around 6 months as part of the illness (I had liver problems). Now that tiredness was hard to cope with and did affect my family relationships. But the tiredness that goes with being a new mum - if you're in good health and have reasonable social support and aren't depressed? I just don't think we should be going around perpetuating the myth that a well supported, healthy mum is somehow putting her health at risk from the normal night waking that comes with having a newborn and only goes on for most people for 10 or 12 weeks at any intensity.