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

Fabsmum, I very rarely post this kind of thing but - your posts are coming over as being very insensitive and blinkered. Are you not reading what some of us are writing?

I am genuinely very happy for you that you found your first few weeks a positive experience and I am sure that there are many others out there that feel the same.

However, even you littered your post with a lot of qualifications, "if you're in good health and have reasonable social support and aren't depressed?"

Oh and an, "average baby".

Well all that is dandy but many of us that are putting the other point of view were NOT in that situation. Perhaps then it us anomalies that sought help at whatever stage.

FWIW DS slept for an average of 9 hours over a 24 hour period. All in short bursts of no more than two hours. I did have PND. I did not have extended support (DH was also on his knees by the time we sought help). DS was not an "average" baby. He was ill. I did not take any easy options but, yes, ultimately I called in help for fear of going down a far darker route.

Please don't make such generalisations. Your situation was not damaging to you. Fab. Mine was.

i spent the first month i had my baby in tears thinking i cant cope.help.so tired too.had post birth health problems

a normal but untalked about reaction for many mums

part of the reason many of us beat ourselves up is the "perfect mother" belief much perpetrated by media. i felt like a failure.not good enough

i had no post birth euphoria. at all

i got by by allowing myself permission to be "good enough" not perfect.just good enough

the more we all acknowledge that actually it is a huge hard upheval maybe we can be more supportive too

"Well all that is dandy but many of us that are putting the other point of view were NOT in that situation"

Yes - that's why I qualified what I said!

I appreciate that there are people who would have appreciated having another adult provide care for their newborn for a time because they themselves had major struggles adjusting to having a baby for whatever reason - difficult baby, health problems etcs.

I still maintain that from my point of view, separating mothers and babies in the first few weeks of life by bringing in a third party to care for the baby is something I have reservations about - for very good reasons! There's NOTHING insensitive about that. And please - I'm NOT saying that mothers who are struggling shouldn't have help so please don't go into a rant about it. I'm just taking issue with the specific issue of maternity nurses and their traditional role within families. I don't have the same concerns about postnatal doulas, cleaners, mothers helps etc etc.

TBH it's a bit frustrating that people keep responding to my posts with accusations that I think all mums ought to struggle on alone if they're having problems as though I'm advocating martyrdom, severe sleeplessness and postnatal depression as an essential marker of new motherhood. I'm NOT! I'm all for mums having help. I'm just not hot on MATERNITY NURSES

Maternity Nurses is not something new.

In other cultures this was hapening for centuries in the form of extended family.

It happens in the countries i ve lived: Italy, Spain, Greece, and now in Cyprus.

Here in Cyprus, and i think also in Turkey and India, they have something called 'the 40 days'.

Atfer the birth and for at least 40 days you have 2 or sometimes more females from family-mother, mother in Law, older sister, SIL- who come and stay with you and support you in everything from cooking your dinner to show you how to breastfeed or bath the baby. You dont suppose to even wash a cup. It actually helps you to bond better with the baby and makes the whole experience more pleasant. (of course only if your family is pleasant and you get on-thats why paid help is better because you can choose it )

(No, sweetie, didn't think that at all!)

Fabsmum, do stop lecturing us. I had a lovely baby. No major health problems. I just found it all extremely difficult, and misery-inducing. I would have bloody loved someone to show me the 'right way'. And take the baby away.

Oh, and personally I was terrified of falling asleep on the baby and killing her.

It's like pain or cold/heat thresholds - some people feel fatigue more quickly and acutely than others.

If they can afford to hire in help to deal with their postpartum tiredness, it's hardly going to mean their child is doomed to become a sociopath with attachment disorder .

Oh mi, you are so right when you said "the number of people who tell you to 'enjoy it while it lasts' on the days when you just want to die..." - I just wanted to beg them to please, please, please look after ds for a few hours so that I could get some sleep and think straight and maybe, just maybe, actually start enjoying my newborn baby!

It's the mother always in the wrong, madonna or whore thing, let's tone her to death because like me and Sarah Palin and a whole load of others we choose to retunr to work when our babies very little as many women have always done. I did it because i love work and I love babies and working and having babies is the best combination on the planet. It has nothing to do with earning a lot of money (although I can vouch for that being pretty nice too) and all to do with doing what is right for babies and parents. Most parents are happier and do better and their chilren thrive when the parents do enjoyable work and the children have a number of loving adults in their lives. This myth that babies are always just cared 24/7 by a mother is simply made up to keep women down and cahined to the sink.

They only get the PND and are fed up at home because they are doing a very unnatural thing of 24/7 babycare which is dull manual labour anyone with half a brain doesn't choose to do and never has today or 1000 years ago. Much more fun for baby and mothers and fathers if they get some lovely time with the children/parent and then some time apart. it's called balance. It's what most parents with babies seek to achieve.

I do feel each to their own and whatever suits the individual family unit

Some women seem to naturally enjoy 24/7 babycare, others really struggle

happy Mum = happy children imo

I speak as one who has been both an unhappy and happy mum!

My MiL slept with both my babies in her room for a few nights when they were very very little - and brought them to me for feeding. One of my main "problems" with newborns is that I am a very light sleeper and they are like little (obviously lovely and adorable) piglets snuffling and snorting all night. It was very kind of her and meant I was less knackered and emotional the following day. No different if she had been a paid person, imho!

I know people who have had maternity nurses and their children seem totally bonded with them. Don't see the problem really. A lot of these things come down to slight jealousy about other people being able to afford certain things, perhaps?

I also don't see that people need to justify having a maternity nurse with medical problems etc etc (although obviously in many cases people who wouldn't have otherwise might need one then).

Also the guilt laid on mothers and their own need to be loved are issues

If you can accept that you can't cope with 24/7 and you can afford it, why let guilt or your worry that baby will bond with someone else get in the way?

You will always be mum and if you are happy and enjoy the time you do spend with baby they will love and bind with you no matter what

I am ex maternity nurse.

My role varied hugely from job to job.

My ethos is quite a holistic one really.
I met with the family a few times before baby comes and chat about their lifestyle and how they see me fitting into that.
At this stage I would describe my way of working, and explore how compatible that was with the family. I would never ever accept a booking where a family wanted the GF theory followed.

I always, always first and foremost promoted good establishment of bonding and breastfeeding. I also encouraged older siblings' involvement and interaction with the baby, making sure they didn't feel pushed out.

I helped out at night by winding, changing and re-settling baby so that Mum can just wake, feed then go back to sleep

I do encourage routines, but only in line with what the parents want and in a gentle encouraging way.See above point ref GF

I am just as happy providing hands-on child care help as I am doing all the washing, ironing, shopping and cooking. I did anything that made life easier and helped the family to be able to enjoy their new baby basically.

Every Mat Nurse is different- I am easy-going and flexible- some are complete dragons who are extremely strict...and quite frankly a bit scary

sounds great shinypinkshoes!

I am expecting number 2, can I hire you?!

That dragon on How To Bring Up Baby gave mat nurses a bad name imo

I went back to work when my LO was 3 months old. I was that or loose the roof over our heads so I had no choice. No DP to share the resonsibility. I managed to get her sleeping through the night by 3 months thank goodness, it can be done.

I was lucky to have good childcare in the way of help from family, along with paying for what I could afford. Still it was hard to accept the help and I felt guilty for putting on people.

In those days how I wished I had the money for a maternity nurse, full-time nanny, bording school seemed like a blissful luxury that of course I could never afford.

Years later and we got by and how glad I am that I didn't have the money for any of these things. A cleaner would be nice though .

Excuse the typos, I need to sleep.

When I decided to become a maternity nurse two years ago one of my main concerns was not to be an overbearing presence in family households. I definetly am not from the "my way or the highway" brigade.

At interviews I tell parents I'm more than happy to grocery shop, cook, take out the rubbish IF it means that the parents get to spend quality time with their child/ren. But I then are also careful not to fall into the trap of doing everything!

I look at the bigger picture of what I can offer families with new borns. I think back to my child hood where in my small community friends would bring meals/take older children/do washing/cleaning to families with new borns to where I live now in a huge city where it can be incredibly lonely for mothers/parents to get the support they need/want to get them through the first weeks of the babies lives. If I can leave the family after one, two, six weeks or even three months with them been confident and happy with their new baby then I can can say I did a good job.

Oh Nannynz- I think that you and I met a few years ago when you were nannying in London!

In recognise your user name from the site we both posted on at the time

Hope all's well with you

You sound like a very nice mat nurse, nannynz. My friend who had one was slightly scared of her. Her and her DH refered to her as "Nursey" (like out of Blackadder) and were always getting into trouble for not following the routine etc.
Amusingly, the child went on to be the least routine-led of any child I ever met (slept with her Mum until 5- not in an active we want to co-sleep type way, bed at 11pm if they were lucky, etc etc). The 3 months with Nursey were the height of her getting any amount of sleep I think!

nannynz - the way you work sounds far more akin to a postnatal doula, in that you are supporting the family as a whole, so that the parents can adjust to having their new baby.

Can I be cheeky and ask about what sort of training you got in breastfeeding support as part of your maternity nurse training? Did you do an NNEB or CACHE, or do you come from a nursing background?

I knew a family with a mat nurse who kicked up a fuss because the breakfast cereal on offer in the house was not to her liking

She went out and bought her preferred brand and then gave the mother the receipt for the £1.76 or whatever it was. They can be very grand.

It would seem that some people here have no problem with Maternity Nurses, so long as they don't call themselves Maternity Nurses!?

i would rather have a cook, a cleaner, a gardener, a butler, whatever, rather than a maternity nurse.
fat chance however!

Well said Bubbaluv! Fact is, that a postnatal doula tends to work only about 5 hours a day and very unlikely to do nights. But the holistic approach of pitching in with all sorts is doula-like and some more traditional mat. nurses wouldn't entertain the idea.

I love my maternity nurse like a sister. Seriously, that's no exaggeration. Not all maternity nurses are are bossy, regimented types in starched uniforms who march up and down with a stopwatch and cruelly take your babies away from you. Some actually help and support - in the way a sister or mother might, but with full-on professionalism.

I had twins so a maternity nurse was always on the cards as I have no family and my in laws, although wonderful, live 200 miles away. And I had a shte pregnancy, a difficut birth (which admittedly I couldn't have foreseen when I booked my mat nurse at 14 weeks pregnant), serious anaemia following praevia and a PPH. I couldn't have looked after a stuffed toy rabbit never mind newborn, premature twins with a feeble suck reflex. Because they were earlier than expected we spent a week at home with my in laws and then five days on our own with the twins before the maternity nurse arrived and it was fcking terrifying. I felt nothing but sheer terror and fear at my inadequacy and struggled with everything from breastfeeding (poor suck reflex meant it would feed for 10 minutes before falling off exhausted - try doing that non stop for 24 hours and see how you feel about breastfeeding then!) to climbing the stairs (post-caesar healing issues). Bonding with my babies was the LAST thing on my mind. They were scary strangers to me.

The day my maternity nurse walked through the door was the best day of motherhood for me. I burst into tears, declared I was giving up breastfeeding and that I was a shIt mother. She put me back together again. She let me have some sleep, she gave me a break when I needed it, she made sure I ate to get my strength up and, brilliantly, encouraged me to keep on feeding with EBM and a mix of formula and breastfeeding also. IT was only then that I started to bond with my babies as I had the time to be something other than scared. She encouraged me all the way.

So we're not all idle layabouts who elect for maternity nurses on the grounds that we can't be a*sed to get out of bed in the night. But even if we are, so what? Some people are better parents for sleep and I don't think you have to prove your parenting worth by being able to relate a list of your hard-core sleep deprivation. I got sleep and I'm a better parent for it. My daughers love me more than anyone else in the world and I them. And I bonded with them a damn sight quicker than I would have done had I been treading the boards with them night-on-night all night.

Interestingly, you get a lot of slack for twins as having a maternity nurse is seen as an acceptable thing (twins being acknowledged to be hard work). So when we told people we were going to have/had a maternity nurse we'd just get nods of sympathy and understanding noises ("yes, well two is much harder isn't it...."). However, I'd have had a maternity nurse if I'd had just one baby. Not because I'm 'lazy' but because I needed to learn how to become a mother. I was 33, had never changed a nappy or been around children and I had no relatives to hand to show me the way. And above all else, I understand that when you have a baby that's what you need. Support, a 'sister' or 'mother' in whatever guise she comes - relation, friend, hired help. It's all the same to me. Someone to hold your hand and tell you that you're doing a fantastic job. THAT is a price above rubies in my opinion.

K

Bubbaluv's made a few good points, but I wanted to pick up on difference between a maternity nurse (or other paid help) and family. I don't like the idea of a bossy night nanny at all but I like the idea of help which is on my terms. The week ds was born my mum stayed with her sister and came to help every day but a lot of the time it was to do what she thought was important, then ds was taken back into hospital because of feeding problems, and after two weeks I was desperately miserable. Partly because I felt I'd failed feeding, but partly because I hadn't had a chance to gain confidence in what the hell I should be doing, I was just drowning in conflicting advice.

I don't know if it would work for a first timer, but although generally as an old leftie I'm sceptical about private care, I do like the idea of help with what I want help with on my own terms. I think that's why I like the concept of what I think I understand by "post-natal doula" but is also how ShinyPinkShoes described her role, more than my image/stereotype of a maternity nanny.