Paid childcare for 1st month or two after birth

[bluprince13]

We are a couple living in London. Recently found out that my wife is pregnant.

Our parents are both based outside the UK and are not healthy enough to come to the UK to help out. We don't have any family in the UK and we're reluctant to burden our friends as well. Our friends and parents have said that the first month or two after birth is the hardest. I could take the 1st month off to help myself, but I would have to go back to work after that.

I just wondered if any of you have managed through the 1-2 months without external help?

Also, is it possible to hire a part-time nanny or something - e.g. for 4 hours per day or something - just to keep the cost affordable? Has anyone done something like this for the first two months?

Any advice is appreciated!

Almost everyone manages the newborn stage without help. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else looking after my baby in those first few months.

We hired night nannies - they brought the baby to me to breastfeed (or did one feed with bottles), but they dealt with changing him, resettling him etc, so I got way more sleep.

You can also hire a nanny or mothers help part-time, yes. A mother’s help will help fix bottles/do nappy changes/entertain baby so that you can have a shower or something, but won’t be left in sole charge of the baby. A nanny will cost more but can do everything so that you can go out.

Well of course you can hire a newborn nanny if you’ve got the money.
But also most people manage with no extra help and if you’re able to take a months paternity then that’s already about 4x more than most new families
Unless your wife is ill you should be fine.

If you've got the budget I'd focus on bringing in help in other ways - cleaner, shopping deliveries, bought in meals etc so you can just spend time with the baby

Childcare is not what's needed.

Practical help with mundane chores would be far more useful. Cleaner, laundry, ready meals or prepped meal boxes to make life easier.

Er yeah, the vast majority of people manage without any external help.

Newborn nannies/maternity nurses are specialists who work on short contracts but will want FT equivalent hours through those contracts. It's not a cheap option. Night nannies will do overnights; many will do the occasional ad hoc, usually because they have a childcare day job and it's just a bit of bonus on the side. But a night nanny for every night will, again, be expensive. It's your money to spend if you've got it, but you kind of sound like you're panicking. It's a baby, not the end of the world; it's hard work but people manage.

Another vote for cleaner (I had one from when I was 7m pregnant and started getting big to when baby was 8m, lifesaver!). Dog walker, gardener, meal deliveries, whatever you can outsource. A month’s paternity should be the norm IMO. You’ll be fine. Good luck!

You could look at postpartum doulas to help with caring for your wife after the birth/at night, but be cautious and don’t hire someone who’ll come between you as new parents. It’s tough but lovely when you’re both so overwhelmed with feelings.

If your wife plans to breastfeed, an early visit from an experienced lactation consultant who can check for tongue tie and give her the best start possible could save you lots of heartache.

Most people cope just fine with two weeks' paternity leave. It's not easy but it's doable. If you can get extra help then by all means do, but you'll be fine if not.

Just make sure you're pulling your weight overnight and with housework etc.

You'll both be exhausted but you'll be fine.

This is so sad. Why didn’t you want to be looking after your newborn baby yourself?

Double post

I find these threads about people seeking childcare for newborns to be weird and sad. Having a newborn is really hard work. But it's a crucial period for attachment forming. It's pretty important that the baby's primary carer/s are the one/s who care for the baby when they are very young. People who think it's normal to pay someone else to do it are very much missing the point of having a baby.

Pay for a cleaner, hello fresh or meal delivery if you have the budget, pay for a laundry service or whatever else boring household jobs you don't like. Make life easy and spend the time looking after your baby yourselves.

@Blueballoon90 obviously I looked after him. But we had no family help, DH could not take any paternity leave, and I also had a toddler and chronic illness to deal with. So we hired a night nanny so that I could actually sleep. There’s nothing sad about it. The vast overwhelming majority of mums throughout history have had help with their babies from friends and family. In our case we paid for help.

Yes. Covid times meant I had zero outside help.
I suggest you look into shared parental leave and take off longer than a month if you are inclined to help out.

Weirdest post I've ever seen.

With respect, if you don't think you and your wife can cope with a single baby, maybe don't become parents?! Vast majority of parents manage just fine with the mother on mat leave and father working. You'll both work much harder than you do now and have to learn to put yourselves second, but there is great joy in the midst of exhaustion while caring for a child.

We had zero help from family and have done it twice. The sleepless nights are hard, but you nap during the day. First year I found much easier than age 4-5 with child in school.

I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. And would not want anyone else looking after my babies.

Some people have additional needs.

There's zero joy in it if you have severe postnatal depression

A night nanny and a cleaner are what saved us.

I think almost everyone that has a baby looks after their baby themselves. I am very close to my family but the baby was pretty much like my extra limb for the first 6 months.
There seems to be this new view that parents should alleviate the hard parts by hiring night nannies etc. Having a baby and becoming parents is incredibly hard work, it's life changing. It's all part of it.

We had no help at all. Just me & DH, and he had a weeks paternity. I went back at 8 weeks. It was fine. I wouldn’t change it at all.

Definitely not with paid help, unless I had no other way. There were challenging times and a lot of tiredness; but it goes past in seconds and the memories are precious. I’d love to go back for a bit.

If you take a month off work and you don't have any other children then barring disaster it's fine.

As PP have said most of us do it ourselves. I had some visits from grandparents but frankly they caused more work. And many of us have done it with a toddler around too.

Definitely look into shared parental leave, but use it at the end when your wife goes back to work. Easier for her to go back if the baby is with daddy, easier for the baby for daddy to do the nursery settling rather than mummy (and her boobs), and resets the Parent A and Parent B dynamic that maternity leave and breastfeeding necessitate.

I'm sorry if that happened to you.

Nearly everyone manages without help. I had some help from my parents with my first baby, really only for a few days, when my partner went back to work but only because most of his paternity leave had been taken up with me and baby spending time in hospital after the birth.

Second baby, no help needed, even with an older child in tow!

Maximise what time you can take off yourself, so whatever your company offers for paternity leave, and then add some annual leave too. If that's a month, then unless you are extremely unlucky and your wife/baby are unwell, that should be plenty of time to get into the swing of caring for your new baby.

Of course you can hire a private maternity nurse or a nanny, but that will be expensive and personally I think it could be intrusive and interfere with building your relationship with your new baby.

To be honest the first 2 months you don’t really want anyone else taking care of your baby except for things like having a shower (if you have a baby that will only sleep on you) I would personally focus on other help - get a cleaner, fill the freezer with ready meals (Cook ones aren’t too full of junk), use a laundry service.

Once you’re back at work small things can really help your wife at home: make her a big thermos of tea/coffee in the morning. Sort her breakfast & if possible lunch ready in the fridge. And don’t expect her to get much housework done!

Finally don’t forget you are entitled to unpaid parental leave if you’re really in a bind.

It did happen to me and it was during covid so I had no help until the blimmin bubbles. I could really have done with some.