Motherhood…A journey which has no fixed directions, no fixed schedules, and no fixed approaches. Most of the times, a new mother becomes clueless about how to go about and efficiently manage everything, – feeding her baby, cleaning, bathing, preparing baby to sleep, playing with her baby alongside household chores, taking care of elderly members of the household, and/or doing a home based job or freelancing. In my opinion, a working mother gets spared with her choice of hiring a baby caregiver or nanny as she would need the services while she is not at home. However, if the mother is a stay-at-home-mom never mind if she is working or not working from home, our society assumes that she is going to take care of her child single handed and she won’t need any helping hand. Does that hold true for every new mother? What if a woman has become a mother in her mid/late 30s? What if a woman has undergone a C-Section and has frail health because of that surgery? What if a woman cannot handle all the household chores, a freelance job, and taking care of the baby altogether, without any rest? This article attempts to find an answer without forgetting to appreciate the mothers who really manages to do it all alone.

If you remember Mary Poppins, a fictional nanny, you would readily understand what a nanny does. Mary Poppins came to help out Mrs. Banks in raising her kids and went back when they grew up to be self-supportive. Similarly, a nanny’s work is to help out a mother when she is not able to manage everything alone. And if the nanny is a thorough professional, educated and reliable, half the worry of a mother vanishes into thin air.

As a mid-30 aged mother, I had been experiencing fatigue, the one which you get with aging. This fatigue and mounting work pressure in the home front as well as in the work front had catapulted me to choose a nanny to help me out in taking care of my baby. I had faced judgements from a few and garnered supports, too, for my decision. Plagued by the judgements, I started a research on hiring a nanny and here are my findings:

1. A nanny provides personalized care for a baby:

Sometimes it is not possible to find a reliable and high-quality day-care centre around one’s home. Moreover, all the babies don’t feel comfortable if they are put into an outside environment with other babies. In this case, a nanny who looks after a baby personally and takes care of his or her needs which varies from one home to another home, remains a smart choice on the part of a working mother or a mother who stays at home but have other responsibilities as equally pressing as raising a baby. 

2) A nanny minimizes mom burnout:

Motherhood means donning many caps together. All those responsibilities and roles can exhaust a mother quickly, mostly if the woman has become a mother after 30 (when the body starts refusing to stay as fit as your 20s). In spite of her trying to shoulder all the responsibilities at the same time, her energy starts to burn out fast. A nanny who is hired for a few hours of the day can help to ease out the exhaustion. You won’t become a bad mother if you take the help for a few hours so that you can rejuvenate and channelize your energy towards your baby during the other half of the day. 

3) A mother’s efficiency improves when she supervises over a nanny’s work:

It is not always possible to take care of the baby-related nitty-gritty (especially if the baby is only a few months old) if you are managing your home or home as well as workplace single-handed. However, when you are supervising over a nanny, then, you can take care of apparently-not so significant-but-significant in case of a baby-chores. Moreover, supervising a nanny can make a mother more responsible towards the well being of her kid.

4) An educated nanny at home provides a safe learning environment for a baby:

Nowadays, when the thinkers are advising to allow the children to learn at their own paces, an ideal set up can be provided at home with a mother, an educated nanny and elderly family members around the kid. The kid does not feel any stress and starts learning to talk, walk, read, and socialize at his or her own pace in this familiar yet secure environment.

5) A mother can pursue her career from the comforts of her home when a reliable nanny is around:

I have met quite a few mothers who are not happy to stay at home without being an earning member of the family. Most of them miss their financial independence, their self-identities as a part of the workforce. So, with a nanny around, a mother can re-establish herself in her choice of career from the comforts of her home. This would become an ideal setup for a mother where she can supervise on a nanny, look after the kid closely, and continue to pursue her career.

6) Let your elderly parents relax and don’t burden them with baby duties:

Our parents are the ideal people whom our kids look up to. They are their playmates, partners in crime and go-to persons when you or your spouse are all worked up. But that doesn’t mean you would be loading them with the exhausting baby duties. Running around with a baby is tiring and we should keep this in mind while asking favours from our elderly parents like looking after the baby or help you out in the baby chores. They had already done these tiring chores while raising you or your spouse, why tire them again when they are old and weak? Let them relax. Let them supervise upon the baby’s nanny if needed and have a laid-back time with their grandchildren around while you or the nanny is doing all the running. We owe them this time, don’t we?

P.S: We don’t mean to unacknowledge the labour of the mothers who have chosen to do all the baby duties single-handed. Our salute to them. This article is for the mothers who undergo a tough time as well as depression of going under the burden of raising a kid alone. Let us not be judgemental. Let us be empathetic, instead. Happy parenthood!! 

Stay tuned. We are going to upload “The tips to choose a perfect nanny for your child“, soon.