One of the most consistent pieces of advice we received while pregnant with multiples was "get a night nanny." I was a bit hesitant at first because I'm constantly concerned about finances and knew I wouldn't be working at all and I like challenges and thought we can do this ourselves. After much budget analysis, thought and prayer we decided to go ahead and hire a night nanny three nights a week. We hired the same one that my friend Kandace used for her triplets. She came for the first time the first night we brought the babies home from the NICU. I can sum her up with one word: Awesome. A lot of people, myself included, use the word awesome all the time for various things but she truly is awesome, a God-send. She came around 9 or 10pm that first night and stayed through the night. She came armed with a binder, spiral and charts for each baby to track how much they eat, wet or poopy diapers, medications if any, and special notes. She sent us to bed not long after arriving and getting the lay of the land. We woke up the next morning (I still woke during the night to pump) to find that she had organized all of our bottle supplies, she washed and folded all the baby laundry, she fed the babies every 3 hours during the night and made detailed notes in her spiral about each feeding and baby so that we would know what happened, she made bottles, washed bottles, washed pump stuff, etc. She is amazing. It's overwhelming bringing one baby home, let alone three preemies. She has been such an incredible blessing for our family. She is one of the kindest, most caring people I know. She has taught us so much about multiples, swaddling, scheduling, which products are good, etc. I really can't say enough good things about her. We will be losing her soon as her next set of triplets have arrived and will be going home any time now and we are so sad. She is like our Mary Poppins and now the weather is changing and she has to go. :( However, as of January 20th, our precious babies have been sleeping all night long from approximately 7:30pm until 6:45am. Yahoo! We have had a few episodes of them waking and fussing for a bit but they are doing so great!! We sleep trained Barrett by 8 weeks old but there is no way we could have sleep trained these guys without Kristin. It is just a totally different world with multiples.
To all of you who have contributed to our "nanny" fund, we cannot thank you enough. We are truly humbled by your kindness and generosity. You have made our lives so much easier by allowing us extra rest, which I know for me contributes to my ability to feed these three and to just function like a normal human and for Mark's ability to be productive at work. We are so grateful for each of you and cannot express adequately in words how much it has meant to us to have her.
I titled this post Night Nanny Kristin because that is what Barrett calls her. Every time. Not Kristin, but Night Nanny Kristin. :)
If you get pregnant with multiples or are having trouble with your singleton baby, call me and I'll give you her contact info. You will not regret it!
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