Newborn baby with helper

Hi everyone


I am very young mum , my son is 2 weeks old now and I am wondering tons of questions regarding the way I should organize our life in the future with the helper who will be taking care of him, especially when I will go back to work in September.

We hired our helper recently specifically to take care of our son when I will be back at work ( as my husband and I are both working), so for the moment, as I am at home, she’s only taking care of the housework ( cleaning, cooking, ironing..) cause I insist to take care of my baby myself.

I plan to give her some tasks to do for the baby (change baby, feed him with my milk through bottles, watch him for one or two hours if I am outside) little by little but I am thinking to start this from July so that the baby will not feel abandoned to a stranger when I will go back to work in September and that both of them, the baby and the helper will get used to each other ( I will go back to my original country for one month from mid-July to mid-August).

However, I am not very comfortable with the idea of giving my baby to someone else (even though I have nothing bad to say about my helper so far, she’s doing her job very well regarding household work). Maybe my fear comes more from the fact that it’s my first baby and I am wondering if my son will not forget me because he will spend most of his days with the helper, actually, I think my son will know who are his mother and his father as my husband and I really want to take care of him when we are back home in the evening and the week-ends of course but as I’ve never experienced that I wanted to get some testimonials from some of you who live the same situation, how is it going with your newborn baby ? Do you have any good advices to make this organization work for all of us meaning: the helper and the baby when we are not at home and our family : us, the parents with our baby ?

For the moment, I want to take care of my baby myself as I am at home, I find it normal and I want to take care of my son, I see that my helper seemed a bit surprised when I came back from hospital to home, she wanted to help me right away to change his diapers etc.. but I talked to her to make her understand that I wanted to take care of my baby myself , she said that in the families where she used to work before, she needed to do everything for the children , the parents were delegating everything to her... Anyway, I understand that each one has its own way of life but just for me, it will be different , I hired her just because I have no choice if I want to work but I really would like to find a good balance between trusting my helper and prepare the transition with her and the baby before I go back to work and still taking care as much as possible of my baby while I’m still at home and even when I will get home every day after work.

For example, right now I am thinking that I want to give bath to my baby myself when I come back from work..

Also, I am breastfeeding my baby and am planning to express my milk when I will go back to work so that she can give him in bottles.

Is there any mum who experienced the same fears /questions?

Did you manage to go through this successfully?

And in this case, could you give me some example of tasks, rules that you agreed on with your helper in order to make sure she will take care of your newborn the way you wanted but at the same time those rules allowed you to keep close to your baby.

Thanks in advance for your advices

Congratulations on the birth of your son, I can understand as a mum myself to 3 children, that you will want to bond and do as much for your son as possible. Those early days are very precious.

What you are planning to do by involving the helper in care for your baby is a very good idea, there is no reason why you couldn't introduce that at an earlier stage, especially with you going back to your home country for a holiday mid July, then when you return in mid August she will have already had earlier care of the baby, before your return to work in September.

Re expressing milk, this also might be a better idea to introduce occasionally at an earlier stage, so that baby can get used to the bottle, if he is used to only the breast, he might reject the bottle as the feel will be different to him, if it is introduced at a later stage too near to you going back to work. Don't worry you'll still be breast feeding mainly, but the occasional bottle will give your husband and your helper the practice and experience of feeding baby --only occasionally, and give you a rest too.

My own daughter runs quite a big business in the Uk, she has had 3 children, and she employs a nanny-who lives in a flat attached to her house, although my daughter is very busy, and the children have been with the nanny from an early age, they still get plenty of mummy and daddy 'me time', and love their parents.

Mummy and Daddy play with the children when they come home from work, bathe them and tell them a bedtime story.

There have been no adverse effects to the children, and although they 'love' their nanny, they know and love their mummy and daddy very much.

I think if you have to work you have to place trust in baby care, and feel relaxed about it, don't feel guilty about being a working mum,

Hopefully some more working mums can add their advice to this forum as well.

Thanks for your answers, I guess I am too worried because it's totally new for me but your testimonials encourage me.

I will start to delegate some tasks to my helper little by little to make the transition smooth before I go back to work.