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

Three months of no sleep is pretty horrific, though. Even if it is only that. And you're starting from the position that one should be enjoying one's new baby. Many of us find it a terrifying shock. It's not the time when we fall in love with our babies and just want to gaze adoringly.

Mind you, I don't get my cleaner to pick up my partner's socks .

Actually, I'm a bit angry at the term 'perpetuating a myth'. Sleep deprivation is bad for you. Incredibly bad for you. Getting up three times a night is horrific for many people (including me). Confusing it with some idea of what is 'natural' and indeed of 'proper parenting' doesn't help. That way years and years of not enough sleep all too frequently lie. Go down that road if you choose, but don't expect everyone to.

Saying 'yes, the first few months are horribly tiring, you have to get through it and explore your different coping options at every stage' is a lot more helpful, IMO.

Well then. Fabsmum def gets the medal for "Mother Best Able to Cope".
Congratulations.

And if it's so damn easy, then why do so many cultures make use of the extened family to aleviate the burden on the mother?
This is simply a professional alternative to a traditional arrangement that few of us have available to us anymore.

I don't have a cleaner either.

Or a husband who picks up his own socks.

I agree it's a shock and it's hard going without sleep. But just not in agreement that this is innately pathological in itself. What's harmful is the social isolation that many new mums experience that leaves them on their own with a new baby, without the support of friends and family at this special time. It's not the normal disruption of sleep that's necessarily the problem in itself. That said, given the number of UK mums who bottlefeed and who don't co-sleep or who have their baby in another room.... well I suppose that their sleep is likely to be much more disrupted than a breastfeeding mum who keeps her baby close to her at night. Perhaps it's the case that nature didn't design us to be getting up and walking around at night with our babies.... so that's why we struggle so much with the sleep issue. Would say that one of the thing that made nights bearable for me with my newborns was the fact that I fed them lying down and would doze off most of the time. I probably wasn't as sleepless as a lot of other mums who get up and sit in a chair to feed.

"And if it's so damn easy, then why do so many cultures make use of the extened family to aleviate the burden on the mother?"

Good grief, where did I say it was 'so damn easy'? I made the point that new mums need loads of social support and help from friends and family.

I was just questioning the role of the person that comes into your house and assumes the care of your newborn baby for much of the first few weeks, not having people cooking and cleaning for a mum, doing her shopping and looking after her other children.

What's not to understand about that?

"Well then. Fabsmum def gets the medal for "Mother Best Able to Cope".
Congratulations"

Thanks bubbaluv. Would you like to take the stage, as you've just been awarded today's medal for best typical sniping mumsnet 'how dare you imply you're a better muvva than me' comment.

fabsmum - I completely agree with you re breastfeeding.

I never, ever got up in the night for my daughter. Not once.

Babymoon!!!! Sorry laughing at that one. My dd was so colicky that the first few months were a living hell. I remember one day she was awake from 9am until 1am the following morning.It took a midnight car ride to finally get her to sleep.

If I'd known about maternity nurses then, I'd have sold my soul to get one.

tbh I did not like her much and there was zero bonding until she reached 4 months. Fortunately, she's the light of my life now!

Agree with you annoyingdevil. Haven't had anything like the difficulties you described but I do not fall in love quickly with my babies. Am on third now and am doing all night time stuff myself but it's not helping with the bonding. I'm cool with it though. I know fall in love with them very gradually. In fact I still love my 3 1/2 yr old more each day. IMHO bonding is not something that happens immediately after they're born or in the first few weeks. It is a long slow process.

I'd have had a maternity nurse for ds1 if I'd known such things existed. He screamed pretty much non-stop for the first 10 weeks and never slept. I remember saying to dh something to the effect of 'wouldn't it be wonderful if there were people you could hire to help out in the night'. I'd have happily forgone any holidays or luxuries to pay for one if I'd known they existed.
By the time he was 10 weeks old I was so tired that I was (regularly) having hallucinations and once keeled over whilst holding ds1.

Think, to some extent, it depends on the child. Ds2 was a much easier baby and it never seemed necessary but I would have had one like a shot if he'd been a bad sleeper too.

Fabsmum,
Many women on this thread have expressed how incredibly hard they found those first few weeks and how thier tiredness DID impact on their ability to bond with/enjoy thier baby. So to suggest that these experiences are somehow perpetuating a "Myth" is increibly insensetive and hurtful.

And if you think it's fine for women to be supported by family and friends then why not by someone else? Many women don't have family and friends to call on, so a maternity nurse is an excellent substitute.

'Would say that one of the thing that made nights bearable for me with my newborns was the fact that I fed them lying down and would doze off most of the time. I probably wasn't as sleepless as a lot of other mums who get up and sit in a chair to feed.'

You're lucky you were able to feed lying down.

Some are not so fortunate.

One size doesn't fit all.

To OP - YABU - not all of us are blessed with natural mothering instincts

'why would you want someone else to have precious moments with your little one'?

Christ, the first six weeks of my first baby's life were absolutely awful. The nights were sheer hell. The misery of lying there in different sorts of pain, woken up yet again in the small hours, wondering if my body would ever feel human again, loving and hating and dreading the baby, and at the same time overwhelmed with utter guilt that I wasn't feeling the apparently mandatory ecstasy...

Mother Inferior - I felt EXACTLY the same way as you and if money was no object I would have had someone in to help me.

It is a slow process - but it's a continuum - from them being in side you, to them being in your arms, against your skin for long periods of time as newborns, to spending less time being held and sleeping alone as older babies. There just seems to be a big rush in this culture to bypass the bit after the birth where the baby is slowly eased into being outside your body instead of inside it by having lots of close contact with you over the first few weeks.

I wish I could afford one.I feel most people would hire one if they could afford it. Has anyone seen any studies or research that show that maternity nannies or night nannies are bad for the babies? Uh,...too much around...

"Good grief, where did I say it was 'so damn easy'?"
Well...
"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."

Certainly sounds like your saying "I was fine...what's your probelm?"

i had a live in maternity nurse - situations were forcing me back to work quickly - i had also had an incredibly difficult pregnancy and was advised that it could be sometime before i could walk after birth - no family and no friends who coul help - this was not going to be a picnic! I breathed deeply and spent a fortune on a MN

the good thing was the fact that i rarely did nights - i would take the baby at 8.00am and have him with me for the rest of the day - she would do the bottles, washing etc - all the stuff that your baby knows nothing about - i would do the day feeds and changes etc - you don't just hand your baby over - you have someone to do things when you can't or are too knackered. I got him into a routine and did not rely on someone else to do that for me. It meant my time with him was great - i wasn't tired - we have a really lovely time

the bad thing is having someone in your house - i learnt quickly to trust my own instincts and to basically take advice from the MN with a pinch of salt

I had no post natal depression - i returned to work at 12 weeks - he was sleeping through - he's a very contented boy - i have a nanny and am keeping him at home until i think he's ready for a few hours at nursery - i really did not want him in nursery from really small- i can afford a nanny, most can't which is just crazy - paying a gross wage out of net income !!!

I would probably go with a night nanny to be honest but having someone around just to do stuff really helped

Agree Expat, My Ds wouldn't feed lying down until he was about 4 months old!

Louise - there's no 'mandatory ecstacy'. I felt very little other than interest in my second baby at birth. That's normal. Lots of mums don't fall in love straight away. But it's partly through handling your baby and caring for him or her that the bonding process begins, and takes shape. You find a way of relating to them - you work out how they like to be handled and what they don't like by being with them and seeing their responses to what you do and how you are with them. It's a two way process and it can be very slow. My point on this thread has been to express a concern about having a third part coming into the emerging relationship between the mum and her newborn, a third party who is spending a lot of time handling and holding the baby, and telling the mum how to handle the baby instead of the mum. I appreciate that with a very unhappy, unconfident mum having a mature, experienced person there to simply give them confidence in their ability to care for their baby isn't categorically a bad thing, but I suspect that's not what being a maternity nanny is about a lot of the time - it's about taking the baby off the mother for fairly protracted periods, giving the baby bottles (whether of expressed milk or formula), showing the mum the 'right' way to hold/bath/comfort/feed a baby, when in fact the only 'right' way with all these things is the way that suits mum and baby best. There is no 'right' way to hold or bath or change a baby - as long as baby is safe and comfortable.

Mandatory ecstasy was my expression. And I stand by it. And by the number of people who tell you to 'enjoy it while it lasts' on the days when you jjust want to die...

And I found the idea of being just with my baby, day after day, a bit like a prison sentence. Arguably slightly better than pregnancy, which I found completely horrible not least because you are never alone, but quite terrifying.

It's great (honestly - not being sarcy) that you find the process so straight forward Fabsmum, but if you read the posts here you'll see that many women don't. Even women who don't have a Mat Nurse will often get guidance on holding/bathing/dressing etc thier baby from someone (mother, MIL, sister or friend) so I can't see why it's different if you pay for that guidance?
Also, the Mat Nurse only gives a bottle if that's what the mother wants, same with taking the baby away from the mother. That is all determined by the mother. Easier to get a baby back from a mat nurse than a MIL in many instances I bet!
I just don;t see what's intrinsically wrong with it?

'My point on this thread has been to express a concern about having a third part coming into the emerging relationship between the mum and her newborn, a third party who is spending a lot of time handling and holding the baby, and telling the mum how to handle the baby instead of the mum. '

The third party in my case is the children's father.

God forid he get in there.

People have two parents for a reason.

And often grandparents etc too. Disaster!

I expressed bottles of milk so my mother could get up with DD2, the one whom I couldn't feed lying down (big, saggy norks with huge nipples and she has a rosebud mouth) no less than 3 nights whilst she was here so I could sleep unbroken.

I felt like a new woman! I'm eternally grateful.

I ff'd DD1 - lots of problems, traumatic delivery, severe PND, post partum illness, the lot - and again, my mother came over for close to two months and took over in a lot of ways.

Can't say it's affected our 'bonding' long-term.

I mean, plenty of children are adopted well after birth and bond very well with their parents.

Sorry Motherinferior! I copied and pasted your excellent comment as I agreed with it wholeheartedly. Hope it didn't look as though I was passing it off as my own.